I Think There’s A Limit To Blaming Finance Bros For Boeing’s Current Fiascos Since It’s Happened Long Before Now

The 737 Max which has had it’s series of controversies, had a door fall off mid flight which brought up discourse on how Boeing has lost it’s way (since 2015 even!)from being an All-American, engineering-led, union-strong company to being yet another case of finance bros driving great companies into the ground. Now, I’m sympathetic to this view but I’m not sure it explains everything since similar issues has happened to Boeing before the McDonnell Douglas merger that supposedly fueled this decline.

In the 90’s, 3 747’s had engine pylon failures in 2 years and 2 of the failures led to fatalities. Also, the 727 had multiple accidents in it’s first decade of service mainly caused by sink rates.

Given these issues, I doubt it’s fair to portray pre-Wall Street Boeing as some super safety focused company. Not that it’s entirely wrong, just incomplete.

I keep wanting to write on how aviation’s safety culture has made a strong impression on me but I’ve never gotten down to it. Here’s hoping that I’ll do it soon.