Downfall: Case Against Boeing

This documentary does a good job contextualizing the rot inside of Boeing as well as giving the family of the victims some light.

While I knew about how Boeing trashed it’s engineering culture in favor of bean counting, I didn’t realize just how rotten it was. Between the deception and laughing at the victim airline for wanting training, Boeing is truly cancer. Add this to how they haven’t paid income tax in forever and them begging for money despite decades of buybacks, it’s sad how Boeing fell off.

I initially heard of Boeing’s rot during the time when the 787 had various issues through this Al Jazeera documentary in 2014 [VIDEO: 48:22]. The 787s technical issues are just a backdrop to Boeing’s rotting culture meaning that the 737 Max’s issues were coming, particularly with labour relations as they seem to want to get rid of their Everett, Washington facility. Downfall didn’t discuss labour issues beyond corner cutting unlike the Al Jazeera documentary, which was strange since that’s a big factor in all of this.

In all, it’s a cautionary tale of what happens when you sacrifice your orginizational values to the altar of bean counting. But bigger than this, it’s time to replace a lot of flights with high speed rail.