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Informationen zum Autor Peter Robison Klappentext NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • A suspenseful behind-the-scenes look at the dysfunction that contributed to one of the worst tragedies in modern aviation: the 2018 and 2019 crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX. A n "authoritative, gripping and finely detailed narrative that charts the decline of one of the great American companies" ( New York Times Book Review ), f rom the award-winning reporter for Bloomberg. Boeing is a century-old titan of industry. It played a major role in the early days of commercial flight, World War II bombing missions, and moon landings. The planemaker remains a cornerstone of the U.S. economy, as well as a linchpin in the awesome routine of modern air travel. But in 2018 and 2019, two crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 killed 346 people. The crashes exposed a shocking pattern of malfeasance, leading to the biggest crisis in the company’s history—and one of the costliest corporate scandals ever. How did things go so horribly wrong at Boeing? Flying Blind is the definitive exposé of the disasters that transfixed the world. Drawing from exclusive interviews with current and former employees of Boeing and the FAA; industry executives and analysts; and family members of the victims, it reveals how a broken corporate culture paved the way for catastrophe. It shows how in the race to beat the competition and reward top executives, Boeing skimped on testing, pressured employees to meet unrealistic deadlines, and convinced regulators to put planes into service without properly equipping them or their pilots for flight. It examines how the company, once a treasured American innovator, became obsessed with the bottom line, putting shareholders over customers, employees, and communities. By Bloomberg investigative journalist Peter Robison, who covered Boeing as a beat reporter during the company’s fateful merger with McDonnell Douglas in the late ‘90s, this is the story of a business gone wildly off course. At once riveting and disturbing, it shows how an iconic company fell prey to a win-at-all-costs mentality, threatening an industry and endangering countless 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 fa...
