Boeing 737 Max Factory Was Plagued With Problems, Whistle-Blower Says

I left Boeing after 19 years when Douglass merged with Boeing and it became all about profits first and safety a distance second Fire and send the entire exec staff to prison and replace the board

Boeing disrespect of quality, and ultimately safety, is only as disgusting as Mr Pierson testimony about the incredible lack of seriousness both from NTSB and FAA... Aren't they supossed to be in charge of safety and reliability? OR are they only wanting to pass the hot potato to others? Any detailed commentary on ANY Less-than-Perfect conditions at the factory floor SHOULD be given top priority from those higher in the company. If a company executive is not interested, then that executive should NOT work in aviation, period. It is as serious as a medical malpractice, and should be handled as a criminal matter. Just imagine that an airplane goes out of control into a heavily populated place. With that kind of management executives, terrorism is not even needed.

Until the board wakes up and relocates to Seattle......Boeing is going to spiral downhill. " Virtual presence is No presence" Moving the HQ out of Seattle is the root of this debacle.

Current Boeing management and Board has gutted an iconic American brand and discredited the United States as the world leader in aviation safety. Boeing doesn’t seem to understand, as evidenced by their completely anemic communications team, that they are a brand. Many steakolders including regulators, airline execs, airline employees, and flying customers experience their brand and trust it for safety. To be clear this was not due to lack of resources. Boeing is a very profitable company but it has chosen to invest +96% of net profit into share buybacks rather than getting their poop in a group to make the safe, reliable airplanes that have long made us proud to call Boeing an American icon and our biggest exporter. I hope shareholders demand significant turnover of the Board and Exec ranks, and likely will once they start seeing the lagging financial impacts of payouts to airlines for the grounded fleet.

As a mechanic I would like to read a few examples in detail of what happened in production to cause such reports. there are so many things from holes drilled off center ( human errors ) to quality control of sub contractors,, cables wrapped wrong,, etc whats the breakdown of man made work vs assembly line machine work. I suspect new planes suffer from same things as field maintenance performed wrong. parts wrong 1 type , 2 installation 3 defective etc. We need details, separate carpet tacks from fuel valves.

Capitalism can be a dangerous thing especially when the only considerations is for the stockholders! I would think long and hard about placing my life in the hands of a company where pure greed took precedent over customer safety!

And no one will ever be held accountable.

Given the opportunity of serious monetary gain from Ed Pierson should he proceed to court, and given that most readers will see two sides of this tarnished coin, I am left to wonder WHY Pierson didn't contact the national press with his lawyer alongside, when and at which time they could have perhaps prevented the two disastrous accidents. The innocent people on those planes, including the flight crew, have paid the price of underlining the issues raised. Boeing can say whatever it wants. FAA start to look like they are no longer dependable. And the public in general have every right to wonder just what is going on here!

Depressing. Makes me sick to read Mr. Pierson's warnings were ignored by Boeing management and by government agencies that are supposed to monitor the industry. Boeing needs to recall the Max, clean up the production line for all planes. I never want to fly on the 787 or 737 Max.

So no, no direct link to MCAS ? But what about the instruments sending data to MCAS ? MCAS had problems, but the data that MCAS was getting from instruments was a major part of the story too.

The current management hijacked Boeing for their own personal financial interests. Every stake-holder should have spoken up.

Perhaps it is time to pull the plug on the 737 Max and start over. It is becoming apparent that the original fix, MCAS and all of the subsequent actions, are more of a case of "putting lipstick on a pig." I am not sure the flying public will ever trust this plane. Write it off as a bad idea, poorly executed, and design a new jet. Be really transparent this time.

Not only Boeing by any stretch. It appears to be a universal feature of aircraft industry culture to compress the testing phase of new aircraft, fudging data wherever necessary, in order to get series production started, and cash flowing. It is a 'we'll fix it if someone notices and if we can't convince them they're wrong' philosophy.' Threats, veiled or pointed, plus the 'don't rock the boat' mantra, see any inconvenience (or danger) discreetly shifted down the line into someone else's bailiwick.

Don't forget, when Boeing absorbed the failed McDonnell Douglas in 1996, the McDonnell management took over Boeing. The 'bean counters' threw away the manufacturing culture of Boeing, moved the headquarters to Chicago and the engineering to Georgia, in pursuit of more profits for the investors and themselves.

Brave guy and a strong moral compass. He's a credit to himself and his family. If only there were more who lived up to that kind of honesty and level of honor. Hopefully the company sees it for what it is and doesn't try to crush him once lawyers get involved.

The Boeing management is clearly to blame in all this. Ironically, their carelessness, in trying to beat Airbus, has instead made Airbus the winner.

Put the blame where it belong. The fish rots at the head first. Trump, the head of the FAA and the CEO of Boeing should be held responsible for the hundreds of poor souls killed in the two Boeing crashes. Don't look for scapegoats. Trump pretty much let the company regulate itself and the FAA chief and CEO gladly went along with it.

While visiting his airplane building shop at the Duwamish shipyard in 1916, Boeing (William E., Founder/Owner/President/Board Chairman) saw a set of improperly sawed spruce ribs. He brushed them to the floor and walked all over them until they were broken. A frayed aileron cable caused him to remark, "I, for one, will close up shop rather than send out work of this kind.”

Another fine example of Boeing's culture of greed. I retired in 2013 after a 30 year Navy career and for a while worked as a Gov Contractor for a company that was a Boeing partner. The culture of the company I worked for was the same as Mr. Pierson described. In my case, after numerous attempts were made to report and correct mishandling of classified information the site manager was fired and we workers were all sequestered in a room and told by management that "Boeing was 65% of their revenue and they were not willing to do or say anything that would upset their relationship." This lack of action struck deep in my core values. I reported this and many other infractions to the Squadron Commanding Officer that my contract supported and he took immediate action to resolve. I ended up leaving my employer over this because I will not ever be part of any corporation that when under contract with the US Gov't is more concerned with their profit margin than doing the right thing. My thanks go out to Ed Pierson for blowing the whistle.

This is the way of business in America today. Short sighted, dialed out top level management focused solely on the current quarter's profits. Dedicated employees who know what the company is doing wrong but who are routinely ignored. The final piece of this puzzle is a government in bed with business to maximize profits, not to provide the needed oversight. This is not just the story at Boeing but of most large American companies today from my experience. We can each decide on which planes we will fly, but I for one will never step aboard a Boeing plane again.

Another deadly example of what happens with an unnderregulated government. Of course Boeing is responsible, but cynically speaking is it “normal” for manufacturing to cut costs at any juncture. But the FAA and other government regulating agencies are supposed to protect us from greedy manufacturers. And they aren’t and we suffer. De-regulation is the culprit.

This exemplifies what "jumped off the page" at me early in the revelations of the current culture at Boeing. In their rush to make money, and beat Airbus, the executives at Boeing forgot what 80+ years of building airplanes had taught the company - safety comes first. This is plainly evident in everyone of the revelations that have come to light, from not designing-in redundant systems in the aircraft as a standard feature, to corrupted certification practices, to shoddy workmanship on the floor. It all spells disaster and that's exactly what we got. Before anything else, Boeing needs a new management team from top-to-bottom who appreciate the lessons of 80+ years building airplanes, and who remember every day what the Boeing mission is. In addition to killing hundreds of people, the current management of Boeing have soiled the reputation of the company greatly and it will take a long time to recover from that, both financially and reputationally. The only way to start that recovery is with a complete change of management.