There is a notion that Boeing is/was a company with an insanely great engineering culture and their engineers lived in an idyllic culture of building great and safe products. This great culture was all lost as a result of the merger with McDonnell Douglas [1], [2], [3].

This argument is frequently put forth by ex-Boeing engineers. This is an apologia for Boeing's behavior which killed 346 people and endangered the lives of 1000s more and destroyed jobs/wealth around the world. These apologists want you to think that the unholy trinity of the McDonnell Douglas culture which infected Boeing, the decisions of Harry C. Stonecipher, CEO of McDonnell Douglas at the time of the merger and Dennis Muilenburg, the last CEO of Boeing who greenlighted the 737 MAX are responsible for this outcome.

So strong is the apologists conviction in the purity of Boeing's engineering culture that they ignore the fact that thousands of engineers worked on the 737 Max. Not a single engineer raised issues with the engineering of the aircraft. Not a single engineer wrote a blistering memo calling out its failing or quit in protest. They were all held in thrall, paralyzed and forced to go against their ethics, professionalism, decency by the power of this unholy trinity!

Eventually, all stellar organizations, public or private, become complacent (e.g. Israeli Intelligence Failure, 1973). Boeing made an unstable plane with a dangerous MCAS to get it to market fast. They then topped it off by making it rely on a single sensor. They then made the dual-sensor an upgrade. An undergraduate engineering student with a basic course on probability can see that this is tailor-made for disaster. Boeing made an essential safety feature an upgrade!! But wait there is more. They then proceeded to hide this monstrosity from every regulator and airline on the planet and insisted that the plane was no different in every aspect of its flight behavior than its predecessor which was over 30 years old and did not require additional safety training.

Boeing had become so criminally blatant that the head of airline training at Lion Air inquired about extra training for the 737 Max and they rebuffed him. After the Lion Air crash, Boeing proceeded to cast aspersion on the safety practices of Lion Air. Lion Air does have a spotty safety record but in this case, Boeing rebuffed their requests for additional training because it would set a precedent for other airlines in SE Asia. When that lack of training was a factor in the crash, Boeing proceeded to blame Lion Air. Chutzpah!

Released transcripts of messages show how Boeing employees worked in unison to ensure no extra simulator training was required. Great engineering culture obsessed with safety, this aint!

We need to start accepting that whatever stellar engineering culture existed at Boeing is dead. We as a society need to stop scapegoating imaginary forces in the past and giving Boeing engineers a pass. Let's agree that strong regulation is necessary to ensure the safety of Boeing Products.

[1] https://qz.com/1776080/how-the-mcdonnell-douglas-boeing-merg...

[2] https://fortune.com/longform/boeing-737-max-crisis-sharehold...

[3] https://www.perell.com/blog/boeing-737-max