Flying Blind - The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing

Informationen zum Autor Peter Robison Klappentext "A fast-paced look at the corporate dysfunction--the ruthless cost-cutting, toxic workplaces, and cutthroat management--that contributed to one of the worst tragedies in modern aviation Boeing is a century-old titan of American industry. The largest exporter in the US, it played a central role in the early days of commercial flight, World War II bombing missions, and moon landings. It remains a linchpin in the awesome routine of air travel today. But the two crashes of its 737 MAX 8, in 2018 and 2019, exposed a shocking pattern of malfeasance, leading to the biggest crisis in the company's history. How did things go so horribly wrong at Boeing? Flying Blind is the definitive exposâe of a corporate scandal that has transfixed the world. It reveals how a broken corporate culture paved the way for disaster, losses that were altogether avoidable. Drawing from aviation insiders, as well as exclusive interviews with senior Boeing staff, past and present, it shows how in its race to beat Airbus, Boeing skimped on testing, outsourced critical software to unreliable third-parties, and convinced regulators to put planes into service without properly equipping pilots to fly them. In the chill that it cast over its workplace, it offers a parable for a corporate America that puts the interests of shareholders over customers, employees, and communities. This is a searing account of how a once-iconic company fell prey to a win-at-all-costs mentality, destabilizing an industry and needlessly sacrificing 350 lives"-- Leseprobe CAUTION: This email originated from outside of Penguin Random House. Please be extra cautious when opening file attachments or clicking on links. 1     The Incredibles     Boeing occupies what feels like a city of its own to the south of Seattle. The company’s footprint stretches more than a mile along East Marginal Way, the comically understated name for a street where so much of consequence has taken place for a century. Today there’s a county airport known as Boeing Field; a museum that displays the original humpbacked 747; an aviation-focused high school funded by Boeing (instead of the ubiquitous 12 signs signaling support of the NFL’s Seattle Seahawks, students there hang a v144); and block-long buildings where engineers and mechanics test and develop aircraft like the MAX. One massive building, in fact, was camouflaged as a town during World War II, when Boeing churned out bombers crucial to the war effort. Fake suburban streets were built atop the roof to confuse potential aerial attackers, complete with wooden houses and trees made from wires and chicken feathers.   War was actually the reason the American company would go on to dominate the jet age that brought international travel to the masses in the decades that followed. Days after Germany’s surrender in May 1945, a Boeing engineer named George Schairer sent a letter from a forest near the town of Braunschweig. Schairer had joined a team of civilian advisers working with U.S. Army intelligence there to examine the research files of the Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring Aeronautical Research Institute. What he saw stunned him. The Germans, he realized, understood far more than anyone else about the potential of mating jet engines to swept-back wings. Most planes at the time still used propellers and perpendicular wings, jutting out from the fuselage at ninety-degree angles. Wind tunnel data that Schairer examined in the files showed a massive increase in speed and performance when wings were made to point slightly back, particularly when the engines hung beneath the wings in pods rather than being nested inside them, as had been the custom. The arrangement compensated for drag by making the wing itself more flexible in meeting wind resistance. Schairer sent seven cramped pages of mathematical formulas and sketches t...

Product details

• Authors: Peter Robison
• Publisher: Anchor Books USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 11.10.2022
• EAN: 9780593082515
• ISBN: 978-0-593-08251-5
• No. of pages: 336
• Dimensions: 130 mm x 203 mm x 17 mm
• Subjects: Natural sciences, medicine, IT, technology > Technology; Social sciences, law, business > Business > Individual industrial sectors, branches