The Boeing 737 Max is one of the biggest controversies in the aerospace industry. It was at the time a new addition to the 737 family that promised an enhanced flying and fuel-efficient experience for both passengers and pilots. The Boeing 737 Max was believed to be the “new era of air travel” and was aimed to redefine the aviation industry. It was designed for 6 years and according to the New York Times, it was focused on being cheaper and more efficient. What makes things heartbreaking is that employees at Boeing were excited to work on this project. It was an excellent and tremendous engineering company and almost without failure they point to a degradation of that mindset and that safety suffered as a result. Its main innovation was introducing the MCAS which was designed as a system on the plane to smooth out the way the plane handled. It was designed for situations a plane would never get in and uses the stabilizers to push it back down. Which eventually became a glitch in the system, that led to two very tragic crashes that killed hundreds. This paper is focused on why these things happened in the first place and what corrective actions Boeing could use to prevent this from happening.

Now let’s first start with the history of Boeing till the 737 Max. In its early years, William Boeing first established the Pacific Aero Products Corporation which was eventually named Boeing Airplane Company. The first major aircraft made was the Boeing 247 which was a twin-engine airliner that was made into a key bomber during World War 2. During the 2000s, Boeing developed the 787 Dreamliner which innovated fuel efficiency. Then in 2011, Boeing launched the 737 MAX series. Over the years they mainly focused on technological advancements for future pilots to need only minimal training. That’s when they added the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) in 2017 in the Boeing 737 MAX which then led to the infamous tragic accidents in 2018 and 2019. After these accidents, the Boeing company had to face legal charges and had to ground the Boeing 737 MAX. 

The Boeing 737 MAX series is like most of Boeing’s designs, a twin-engine commercial aircraft. The Boeing 737 was the best-selling aircraft in the world, with more than 15,000 planes sold. It was designed as an upgrade from the famous 737 design by using larger engines to match the improved fuel efficiency of their competition “Airbus”. Boeing claimed that the 737 MAX was so similar to the original 737 that pilots who are already licensed wouldn’t need extra training and simulator time. However, because Boeing increased the engine size, these engines had to be positioned higher on the wings. These new positions and larger engines destabilized the aircraft, depending on the angle, the airplane’s inertia can cause the plane to overswing into a stall. To address increased stall risk, Boeing developed a solution called MCAS. MCAS takes readings from the angle of attack sensor to determine how the plane’s nose is pointed relative to the oncoming air. The software automatically acts if the angle is too great. Boeing designed the MCAS so it would not turn off in response to a pilot manually pulling the yoke. This defeats the whole purpose of the MCAS, which is to prevent the pilot from inadvertently entering a stall angle. Boeing believed the system to be so innocuous, that even if it malfunctioned, the company did not inform pilots of its existence or include a description of it in the airplane’s flight manuals. 

MCAS is suspected to have played a significant role in both of the fatal crashes. There was a glitch in the system and during Lion Air flight JT610, MCAS repeatedly forced the plane’s nose down, even when the plane was not stalling. The MCAS system was also dependent on one single sensor making it open to erroneous readings. The pilots tried to correct it by pulling the nose higher, but the system kept pushing it down. The plane was losing 600 feet of altitude within seconds. Pilots had to adjust the pitch trim every few seconds. It was a nightmare in the cockpit as the pilots did not even have sufficient time to consult the Boeing checklist. At 11:32 UTC, Lion Air Flight 610 crashed in the Jawa Ocean with a 40-degree steep nose downwards with the system repeatedly announcing “PULL UP TERRAIN PULL UP TERRAIN” killing all 189 crew and passengers onboard.  The company believed that the Ethiopian Airlines crash showed a similar pattern in that MCAS was also involved. 

In response to these problems, Boeing made some improvements to Boeing 737 MAX, after the two fatal crashes. First and foremost, he developed the MCAS system and provided more software updates. These updates were intended to identify problems with the single angle-of-attack sensor and stop the plane from moving its nose down too far. Boeing also made improvements to the 737 MAX pilots’ training. Training courses and guides were offered to help people comprehend the MCAS system’s unanticipated actions. 

In conclusion, People cannot bend complex systems to their will. Boeing tried to change it to force an economic change and to save more time. But these changes are risky and come with heavy consequences. Sometimes you also have to realize not everything you think will work is good for everyone else. People with confidence and power have a lot of responsibility, That’s why it’s important to be careful with this responsibility and pay attention to the consequences.