The Boeing 737 MAX passenger airliner was grounded worldwide between March 2019 and December 2020 – longer in many jurisdictions – after 346 people died in two crashes: Lion Air Flight 610 on October 29, 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10, 2019. The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) resisted grounding the aircraft until March 13, 2019, when it received evidence of accident similarities. By then, 51 other regulators had already grounded the plane,^[3] and by March 18, 2019, all 387 of the aircraft in service were grounded.

This Wikipedia entry is the germ of a counterintuitive Hypothesis I will explore for my semester-long research project, which I am condensing into just a few days.

The problem that crashed the MAX in 2018 and again in 2019 began with an innovation that turned tragic. Boeing developed a very powerful bit of airline safety protocol that gave the aircraft the power to respond to imminent engine stalls by initiating corrective measures after seizing control of the plane from the pilots.

There were three problems with this program. 1. The sensors that indicated to the plane that a stall was imminent were prone to failure. 2. The pilots were given NO POWER to override the plane’s “corrective action” if the pilots knew the sensors had failed and that the plane WAS NOT in danger of stalling. 3. Boeing did not notify pilots of the new protocol, did not train them to expect it, and did not correct the “clusterfuck” of problems following the 2018 crash and before the 2019 crash.

What’s counterintuitive about these episodes?

Just about everything. By introducing a CORRECTION to a problem that rarely occurs, Boeing had overcorrected. By trusting to a single device to trigger what turned out to be a catastrophic overcorrection, Boeing had ELIMINATED any chance that the pilots could prevent the crashes. There was little need to correct the problem in the first place. The pilots who could likely have avoided the problem if an actual stall had been imminent were rendered powerless. AND the faulty sensors were not even responding to REAL EMERGENCIES.

Why did it happen? That’s well worth asking and would provide ample reason to examine WHAT happened (Definition/Categorical), WHY it happened (Causal) and HOW TO AVOID IT (Rebuttal/Ethical/Proposal).

The Hypothesis should look something like: In a rush to beat the competition, Boeing hurried a flawed innovation into its 737 MAX. While passenger safety should be the ultimate goal, innovation can be deadly unless it’s an actual improvement to aircraft design.

Start by establishing the facts. The aircraft. The airline industry. What pilots can do. How innovation usually occurs. How rare crashes are. How extremely rare fatal crashes are. Whatever else you think is relevant to the topic. Gather sources while you’re at it and start adding them to a new Proposal+5. When you have a handle on the topic, produce your first 1000-word Definition/Categorical argument and submit it for feedback. You’ll need to show responsiveness to feedback for any argument that goes into your Portfolio.

Good luck.