Front Burner - What went wrong with Boeing’s planes?

Episode Date: March 18, 2024

From emergency landings to mechanical failures, airplane manufacturer Boeing has been in the news a lot recently. Earlier this year, a panel flew off mid-air on a flight, and just this month, a former employee turned whistleblower died while a key legal proceeding was underway.So what exactly is going on?Today, Washington Post reporter Lori Aratani on how Boeing went from being the crown jewel of the American aviation industry to being mired in a seemingly endless series of problems with their planes.For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcriptsTranscripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. Lately, it seems like the airplane manufacturer Boeing is in the news almost every week. Emergency landings, mechanical failures, and very recently, a former employee turned whistleblower dead during a key proceeding. And now, a former Boeing employee turned whistleblower has been found dead. Yeah, that employee actually had a retaliation lawsuit that was set to go to trial in just a few months.

Boeing was once the crown jewel of the American aviation industry. But over the last few years, the company and its leadership have become mired in a seemingly endless series of problems with their planes, some of them fatal. It's a mystery this morning. Why did a new Boeing 737 crash just minutes after taking off from Ethiopia's capital, the airline confirming just a few minutes ago there are no survivors? My guest today is Lori Eritani. She's a reporter with The Washington Post who's been following this story extensively, and she's going to walk us through what exactly is going on. Hi, Lori. Thank you so much for coming on to the show. Thank you for inviting me. Hi, Lori. Thank you so much for coming on to the show.

Thank you for inviting me. Boeing has been in the news for a lot of ongoing issues over the last few months that I want to get into with you today. But I want to start with the very tragic story of John Barnett. He was found dead in Charleston on March 9th of what police say is an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound. Who was he and what was his connection to Boeing? Oh, you are so right. This is such a sad, sad story. John Barnett was a longtime Boeing employee who I think spent most of his career or most of his adult life at Boeing. He had been there for decades. He'd started in Washington state, but had moved to South Carolina to work on the company's 787 Dreamliner planes. He got there, however, and found that it was an environment in which he felt people weren't following procedures. He

saw several instances and reported several instances where he felt they weren't building quality airplanes. My concerns are with the 737 and the 787 because those programs have really embraced the theory that quality is overhead and non-value-added so those two programs have really put a strong effort into removing quality from the process. He became, I guess, essentially a whistleblower. So he would explain or he would point things out happening. And unlike when he worked at Boeing's factories in Washington state, his supervisors in South Carolina weren't taking him seriously. From day one, it's just all been about schedule and hurry up and just get it done,

push the planes out. We're behind schedule. You know, we don't have time to worry about issues that y'all bring up. He filed reports about things he saw he believed were wrong with our regulator here in the U.S., the Federal Aviation Administration. And in some instances, they found that he was right. But eventually, I think the strain became too much for him. He ended up leaving the company and then filed a whistleblower retaliation complaint. And that was the case that he was in Charleston. He was going through depositions. Yes, right. When he died, he was in the middle of this court case.

And just could you tell me a little bit more about the court case? It was a whistleblower retaliation. So he had alleged that Boeing had retaliated at him when he brought up concerns about quality. They moved him to other parts of the factory. They didn't listen. And the strain just became too much. So he of the factory. They didn't listen. Um, and this drain just became too much. So he left the company. Um, Boeing denied that happened. Um, an initial finding found in favor of Boeing. He appealed and, um, that was, he was in the middle of the appeal.

This had been a seven year odyssey for him, which is a very long time, um, to fight this fight. which is a very long time to fight this fight. There has been a lot of speculation surrounding his death. Actually, I think that speculation grew this weekend when a family friend told ABC that he told them that if anything happened to him, it wasn't suicide. I asked him, I said, aren't you scared? And his voice and the way he would talk, no, I ain't scared. He said, but if anything happens to me, it's not suicide.

You know, I know that he did not commit suicide. There's no way. And what do you make of all of that? I've seen those reports too. All I know is, you know, what we've heard from investigators so far, the coroner believes it was a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound. The police are still investigating and we're going to see what comes out. Lori, has Boeing responded at all to John Barnett's death? Boeing has released a statement expressing condolences for his death. And that's all we've heard from the company. I wonder if what we could do now is go backwards a little bit.

So Boeing has been under a lot of scrutiny in the last several years. under a lot of scrutiny in the last several years. And perhaps we could start with when it got incredibly acute in 2018 and 2019, when two Boeing planes were involved in two separate fatal crashes, very close together. And I wonder if you could remind us what happened there. The 737 MAX is Boeing's fastest selling plane. It's a single aisle aircraft. I'm sure folks are very familiar with it. In October of 2018, there was a crash in Indonesia involving a Lion airplane that went down. And in March of 2019, so just a few months later, a second plane, same plane, 737 MAX 8, went down in Ethiopia. And what investigators found was that there were very similar patterns to how the plane behaved before it crashed. Ethiopia's transport minister says data from the black box shows there is a clear similarity between the Ethiopian Airlines crash and the crash in

Indonesia five months ago that involved the same type of plane. The United States and other countries. Subsequent investigations found that there was a software system that pilots in some cases weren't aware of, in part because Boeing had not been forthcoming about how powerful the software system was. And so there were 346 people died. It was terrible. The plane was grounded worldwide while investigators tried to piece together what happened. You know, what they found implicated this software system that Boeing had not been forthcoming with regulators about the significance of the software system, in part because the existence of the software system might have

meant extra training. Extra training adds costs, it adds potential delays, and they had wanted to get this plane out. But members of Congress did their own investigation and found that Boeing had not been forthcoming with regulators. I guess that's the best case. And Boeing had pledged that they would recommit to safety and quality and that they would change. You fast forward now, you know, we had the pandemic. And once airlines emerged from the pandemic, Boeing was getting record numbers of orders. People wanted to fly. They wanted to travel. Airlines were eager to buy new planes. And then in January, we had this terrible incident know, after promising that they were going to, you know, commit themselves to safety?

Were there any meaningful changes at the company? Boeing instituted new safety practices. The old CEO was fired. A new CEO was brought in and he said he was going to focus on quality and safety. And now it appears that while there have been some changes, those changes have fallen short. Safety is at the core of who we are at Boeing, and the recent 737 MAX accidents will always weigh heavily on us. We know we can always do better. That's why I asked our Boeing Board of Directors in April to assemble a special independent committee to review our existing

policies and processes for the design, development, manufacture, and support of our airplanes. Over the past five months... And tell me a little bit more about this door plug incident. People might remember it. It happened in January. The accounts from on board do sound terrifying. And if you've seen pictures, you're just thankful that no one was seriously physically injured. But I'm sure if you were on that flight, it just had to be absolutely terrifying. We're at the end of the plane. We're at the doors right there. It was just a piece of the plane.

It was a flight that had taken off from Portland, Oregon. It was headed to California. And at about 16,000 feet, this door plug blew out. The pilots were able to land the plane, but the subsequent investigation found that some key bolts that are used to help keep this door plug in place were not installed. And what they found is that the fuselage was delivered to Boeing's factory in Washington state, and at some point that door plug was removed, but when it was reinstalled, the bolts were not put in. So that's what the investigation has found so far. The National Transportation Safety Board, which is looking into it, is running into some trouble because there's no paperwork. Right. Yeah,

they're saying maybe their paperwork doesn't even exist. Right. Right. Lori, I don't know if this is because there's extra scrutiny on Boeing or not, but since the incident in January, you know, I've seen lots of other headlines about issues that maybe don't seem as serious as what happened in January, like an entire door size panel being blown off an airplane mid-flight. But they also sound very serious to me. So like just on Friday, for example, there were reports of a Boeing flight from San Francisco to Oregon with a missing panel, and it wasn't noticed until after landing. And then earlier in the month, a 737 MAX 8 Boeing veered off the runway in Houston. And again, a Boeing 737 that was going from Houston to Fort Myers, there were flames seen shooting out of an engine and it had to land. This was all just in March. And so these do sound very serious to me. Would these be considered regular occurrences? I think right now there is a lot of extra scrutiny on Boeing. I think about how we might have reported these kinds of incidents and you might say, oh, a United flight.

There have been several strange incidents where planes have lost tires as they are taking off. You know, we might have ordinarily reported those as a United flight Law, a tire that may not be on Boeing. It may be the cause, maybe something else. But there is a lot of extra scrutiny. And I think that's why you are seeing the first question people have is, is it a Boeing jet? Is it a Boeing jet? And I think people have gotten concerned about how safe it is. You know, our Transportation Secretary here in the U.S. is often asked this at press availabilities. And he reminds folks that, you know, these incidents like this door plug incident was terrible and terrifying, but they're actually pretty rare and that you're you're probably more in danger driving to the airport to catch your flight than you are when you're actually flying. flight than you are when you're actually flying. But this incident does raise questions about Boeing and their quality. The more details come out about the process that went into

looking at this plane, putting this plane together, the more there's more concern. It's probably really cold comfort for people to hear or to be told that flying is still relatively safe because I imagine the first thing that might come to someone's mind is, well, it sounds like it could be safer than this. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization. Empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections.

Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial

vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I wonder if you could take me through a little bit more how we got here. Clearly, issues that seem systemic came to be at Boeing. Boeing has had a long history here in the U.S. It's one of our leading manufacturers. It's one of the leading manufacturers of commercial aircraft in the world. And a lot of people point to a merger in the 90s between Boeing and another aerospace company called McDonnell Douglas. And they say that really changed the Boeing culture. Boeing had such a great reputation for safety among pilots. There was even a common saying, if it ain't Boeing, I ain't going. But it's pretty clear that we're a long way from that culture today. And most observers will trace the shift back to this pivotal event. A major announcement today in the world of aviation.

Boeing and McDonnell Douglas today announced they would join together to form the world's largest aircraft manufacturer. This is, I believe, an historic moment in aviation and aerospace. People who have studied Boeing's history said, you know, Boeing was a company about engineers. That was the focus. And when this merger happened, it became a company that was more focused on the bottom line and production and making money. And they point to that as sort of a real change and a shift in the culture. money. And they point to that as sort of a real change and a shift in the culture. I remember after the two crashes, you know, another issue that people talked about a lot was self-regulation issue, right? The change that happened in the 2000s, the FAA

turned a lot of the day-to-day regulation and compliance monitoring over to Boeing itself? And how did the U.S. government allow for this? It's a process called, or it's a system called ODA, Organization Authorization Delegation. It really rolls off the tongue. But it's a system that, I think there were concerns, not just among Boeing, but other manufacturers, that the process that regulators went through to certify that aircraft were safe to operate was too slow and too cumbersome. So around 2005, Congress made a decision to move to this ODA system where designated people within different companies in Boeing would be responsible for oversight and certifying some of the work under the supervision of the FAA. And that is a system that they've been doing. Ironically, shortly before that first line air crash in 2018, U.S. Congress had moved to delegate even more of that authority to Boeing. People have concerns, right? They call it the

fox watching the hen house. But one of the things that I think is hard for the FAA is the size of these companies is immense. For example, Boeing has about 170,000 employees. The FAA has, I think, about 45,000, and the vast majority of those employees are air traffic controllers, so they don't even work in these areas. Of course, after the 2018 and 2019 crashes, the FAA and Congress is rethinking this, right? The FAA pulled back on some of the authority it had given to Boeing. back on some of the authority it had given to Boeing. I think one report said that at least for Boeing, FAA had only 45 employees that were responsible for overseeing 1,500 Boeing designees. So there is a move to try and pull back on some of that delegation. One of the things they did was before airplanes are delivered to the customer, to the airlines, they are issued an airworthiness certificate.

So before Boeing was allowed to sign off and say the airplane is ready to go, the aircraft is ready to go, that is now in the hands of the FAA. I know that the new administrator that came in has been out to tour Boeing factories. You know, he's taken a real hard line. They had an audit that said they could see instances where Boeing just wasn't following its own processes, right? That workers didn't have enough tools. They were putting the airplane together, but they weren't putting it together in the proper sequence, right? that they're supposed to do. You mentioned earlier that after the merger in the 90s, there was a shift towards the bottom line and profits. And given all of this scrutiny and the headlines, what kind of impact has all of this had on Boeing as a company? impact has all of this had on Boeing as a company? Well, you know, they have that saying,

right, is that customers speak with their feet, right? You know, Boeing has been losing market share to Airbus. You know, its customers aren't happy. So, you know, even if there's not, even if the regulation, people believe that the ODA system went too far, if people aren't buying your planes, you know, that's a very bad sign. I know after this Alaska Airlines incident, Ben Minicucci, who's the CEO of Alaska Airlines, talked about how angry he was that this happened. Have you conveyed your disappointment, your anger to Boeing's top leadership about this? I'm more than frustrated and disappointed. I am angry. This happened to Alaska Airlines. It happened to our guests. It happened to our people. So I think they're paying the price in their stock price. They're paying the price if they're going to lose business. They are producing a certain number of aircraft each month. They aren't allowed

to produce any more than that until the FAA signs off on their process and makes sure that Boeing is doing everything it can to make sure that those aircraft are as safe as possible. You know, one of the other things that Boeing is looking at is as part of a settlement in the 2018 and 2019 crash to avoid criminal prosecution, they reached an agreement with the Justice Department. And if they basically cleaned up their act, right, they improved their safety culture, right? They focused on quality. If they knew that there were instances where people were cutting corners, they needed to report that. That agreement was supposed to expire, I think, the day after this terrible doorplug incident happened, and that would have released Boeing from the potential criminal

prosecution. Now, I think the Justice Department is rethinking. They've convened a grand jury. They've been interviewing crew members on the plane about whether or not Boeing could face criminal prosecution. So that's another consequence of not focusing on quality. Right. And that investigation, I mean, you mentioned earlier the missing paperwork. I would imagine that's part of it, too. But just a final question for you, Lori. You mentioned before that customers are gravitating towards Airbus, which my understanding is that Airbus is the only real competitor to Boeing. And this lack of competition in the industry, do you think that has anything to do with the issues that we're seeing today, the fact that there's only really two places that an airline can go to buy a plane?

A lot of analysts will say that is indeed the case. We've been having this big fight here in the States, not about airplane manufacturers, but about the fact that we have four carriers that dominate the market. They have about an 80% share, right? So what is their incentive to be better if there's not a lot of competition? And a lot of analysts believe the same in this sector. If you've only got two companies that are competing, what's the incentive for them to work harder? But it's a very expensive business. It's very technical. It's very hard. But I'm sure a lot of people believe that that's the case, that if you had more competition, more pressure to produce quality airplanes, you know, that, you know, and other people will also point out, right, if you don't produce a quality product, you're going to lose customers. And I think Boeing is seeing that right now.

Yeah. Lori, thank you so much for this. I really, really appreciate you taking the time. Thank you. Thank you very much for having me on. All right, that's all for today. I'm Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening. Talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.