The cover story in The New York Times magazine for September 22, 2019, was entitled, “What Really Brought Down the Boeing 737 Max?” The writer, William Langewiesche—son of the sainted author of Stick and Rudder, Wolfgang Langewiesche—is a veteran of Flying, an experienced pilot, and a thorough and technically savvy researcher of his wide-ranging articles and books. As you can imagine, I read it eagerly.
Technicalities: The Story Behind the Boeing 737 Max Grounding
Key Takeaways:
- A New York Times article controversially attributed the Boeing 737 Max crashes primarily to the "poor airmanship" and inexperience of the flight crews, suggesting they should have been able to disable the misbehaving MCAS system.
- The article also notes that Boeing deliberately minimized the importance of the MCAS system, almost concealing its functionality to avoid pilot retraining, despite it being a "fatally flawed design" triggered by a single faulty sensor.
- Aviation experts, including Chesley Sullenberger and the author of this piece, strongly refuted the primary blame on pilot airmanship, arguing that the MCAS was a "death trap" due to its design and Boeing's faulty assumptions about human performance during unexpected, cascading failures.
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