Did Boeing Have Prior Knowledge About Their 737 Max's Safety Issues Before The Crashes? It Looks Like They Did! 🤯
I heard a startling story the other day from a friend who claimed to have information regarding the recent crashes of Boeing's 737 Maxs in Indonesia and Ethiopia. The information I received seems to match the publicly recorded statements that there is an ongoing investigation into whether Boeing had prior knowledge of the crashes.
Within five months two Boeing 737 Maxs crashed killing 346 people. The first crash was a Lion Air branded plane in Indonesia and the second was and Ethiopian Airlines plane in Ethiopia. Since then Boeing 737 Maxs have been grounded around the world with the US the last to act.
The information I received was that Boeing knew there was a safety issue with the planes. To minimize their potential losses they sold planes with the compromised safety systems to developing countries and attempted to fix the safety issues on planes that were sold within the US. To improve fuel efficiency Boeing increased the size of the engines and placed them further up on the wings which caused the nose of the plane to pitch. To counteract this Boeing created a system dubbed MCAS which was not pilot operated.
Deeming that the new aircraft were not substantially different from previous models Boeing declared that pilots need only undertake minimal training. Instead of expensive training in multi-million dollar simulators Boeing created a training app to teach pilots to fly the new aircraft on an iPad!
I have worked in the airline industry and have had some insight into the kinds of corruption and chicanery that runs rampant in what is supposed to be the safest form of travel. After all there are only two major suppliers of commercial aircraft in the world, namely Boeing and Airbus.
This is called a duopoly which sounds different to a monopoly but in fact has very little difference. In the end both duopolies and monopolies mean a higher price and reduced quality for consumers. Ideally there will be many competitors in a marketplace to give the consumer the best price and products. So we can say that the airline industry is not really a free market economy.
I could describe many interesting stories of corruption within the airline industry that I have seen or know of and I may well do so at some point so that the knowledge remains on the blockchain and is exposed and not lost to the public. Trust me it is a dodgy industry and being a duopoly is a clear indication of that.
Boeing rushed to develop their 737 Max in response to Airbus' announcement that they were developing a more fuel efficient aircraft. However there appears to be safety faults with Boeing's 737 Max. My contact told me that Boeing knew about the safety issues but kept quiet about it. To try and reduce their litigation potential in the US Boeing upgraded and potentially fixed the safety issue in all the 737 Maxs that were sold in the US.
This matches the reaction of the US' own flight authority the FAA who were the last to ground the planes while the rest of the world had already stopped them flying. So this is indicative, but did Boeing really know of the safety issues before they sold the planes?
According to my source they did know but sent the faulty stock off to less developed countries. That matches both the actions of the FAA and the locations of the two crashes: Ethiopia and Indonesia. Presumably if they did know about the safety issues they did not want the crashes happening in countries where the cost of litigation and repayments would be much higher than in developed countries such as the US.
So what kind of compensation is Boeing looking at from these crashes and associated lawsuits from airlines and pilots. Industry commentators are suggesting that the compensation bill could be up in the billions of dollars. Stock losses after the Ethiopian crash amounted to USD $28 billion. The bills will continue to climb.
My information is that after the Lion air crash Boeing approached Lion air with measly compensation package for the victims. Lion Air took the deal but they did not read the fine print carefully and by taking the deal they indemnified Boeing against further losses. This amounted to a paltry sum per person for their lives.
If passengers had known of the potential dangers would they have boarded those flights? What do you think?
As usual the whiff of corruption and chicanery does not surprise me when so much money is involved. Even the iPad training app seems ill-concieved at best and a criminal at worst. I have been flying around the world all my life and aircraft have facilitated a life of travel. However with such larges amounts of money at stake in a duopoly the potential for corruption and dangerous corner cutting is there.
I suppose the sad moral of this story is that when a new aircraft comes out wait a few years before getting on one yourself to see if any glaring issues are exposed. Perhaps you could even take it one step further and when you do fly on a new model, try to fly in developed countries.
As further details are released and compensation payments are made I will follow this story and lets see if the compensation payments made to families in developing countries are on par with what would be paid in developed countries. Lets hope for a semblance of parity however I am not holding my breath and I won't be surprised to see the poorest people getting treated worse as usual.
Let us wait and see what comes out of these investigations...
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