How Boeing Lost Its Way

Summary

波音737 Max飞机因设计缺陷和文化问题导致两次致命坠机，引发对波音公司安全文化和商业决策的广泛审视。内部邮件揭露了员工对监管机构的欺骗行为，以及公司为满足华尔街预期而牺牲客户和公众安全的行为。波音公司面临重建信任和重塑安全文化的挑战。

Takeaways

• 🚫 波音737 Max 飞机因设计问题和两次致命事故受到严格审查。
• 🛫 波音公司承诺将重新赢得客户和公众的信任。
• 🔍 美国证券交易委员会正在调查波音是否妥善披露了737 Max飞机停飞相关的问题。
• 💡 波音的MCAS（机动特性增强系统）软件问题被认为是两次坠机事故的关键原因。
• 🛠️ 波音公司为了满足华尔街的预期，牺牲了客户和公众的利益。
• 📈 波音公司在追求财务目标的同时，文化和内部沟通发生了变化。
• 🚁 波音787梦想飞机的推出过程中出现了严重的延误和超预算问题。
• 🌐 波音将部分设计和制造外包给供应商，这一决策导致了管理和质量问题。
• 💸 波音通过股票回购和支付巨额股息来提高股东回报，但这影响了公司的长期健康。
• 🏢 波音将公司总部从西雅图迁至芝加哥，这一决策反映了公司文化和重心的转变。
• 🔄 波音面临的挑战是如何在保持创新和质量的同时，重新获得公众的信任。

Q & A

波音737 Max飞机在多久时间内发生了两次致命事故？

两次致命事故在不到六个月的时间内发生。

波音737 Max飞机的第一次事故中，调查人员发现了什么问题？

调查人员发现飞机的传感器或计算机有错误的数据，暗示可能发生失速。

MCAS系统是什么？

MCAS系统是操纵特性增强系统（maneuvering characteristics augmentation system），这个飞行控制软件被创建是为了使Max飞机的操作方式与前一代737飞机相同。

波音公司在第一次737 Max事故发生后采取了哪些措施？

波音公司和FAA在发现问题后大约24小时内发布了警告，并告知飞行员如何抵消MCAS系统的影响。

波音737 Max飞机的第二次事故原因是什么？

第二次事故的原因与第一次相同，是由于一个故障的传感器触发了MCAS系统，导致飞机自动向下推。

波音公司在737 Max飞机问题上存在哪些内部沟通问题？

波音公司的内部沟通问题主要表现在工程师与高层管理之间的沟通受到干扰，这种文化变化是逐渐发生的，持续了数十年。

波音公司在1997年与哪家公司合并？

波音公司在1997年与麦克唐纳·道格拉斯公司（McDonnell Douglas）合并。

波音公司为何决定将总部从西雅图迁移到芝加哥？

波音公司迁移总部的主要动机是为了向华尔街发送一个信息，即这是一家以回报为基础做出投资决策的公司，而不是基于传统或遗产。

波音787梦想飞机在设计和制造过程中遇到了哪些问题？

波音787梦想飞机在设计和制造过程中遇到了外包问题，许多供应商无法承担起设计和制造飞机的任务，导致飞机交付延迟三年，远超预算，还出现了发动机爆炸和电气火灾等问题。

波音公司如何通过财务工程来提高股票价格？

波音公司通过股票回购来提高股票价格，即公司使用资本在市场上回购自己的股票，减少流通股数量，从而提高股票价格和市值。

波音737 Max飞机的设计和制造过程中有哪些关键的工程决策问题？

波音737 Max飞机的设计和制造过程中的关键工程决策问题包括为了与空客A320 Neo竞争而匆忙推出Max飞机，以及为了满足市场对无需额外飞行员培训的要求而隐瞒MCAS系统的存在。

波音公司在737 Max危机后采取了哪些措施来恢复信任？

波音公司在737 Max危机后更换了CEO，新任CEO Dave Calhoun开始进行大刀阔斧的改革，强调透明度，公开更多文件，并承诺将重点放在制造安全的飞机上。

Outlines

00:00

🚨 波音737 Max 空难事件及其影响

本段落讲述了波音737 Max飞机发生的两起致命空难事件及其后续影响。首先提到了狮航波音737坠海事故，无人生还，以及埃塞俄比亚航空的空难，导致157人丧生。随后，段落深入探讨了波音公司面临的审查增加、公众信任危机以及美国证券交易委员会（SEC）对其披露问题的调查。内部消息泄露，揭示了波音公司文化的变化，其中包括对华尔街的压力、高管奖金的关注超过了组织完整性。波音公司为了满足华尔街的预期，牺牲了最终客户和公众的利益。此外，还讨论了波音737 Max的技术问题，如MCAS系统故障，以及波音公司如何处理这些问题，包括与联邦航空管理局（FAA）的沟通和对飞行员的警告。最后，提到了波音公司在2019年面临的困境，两起空难导致飞机停飞，以及波音公司如何努力恢复公众信心。

05:02

📜 波音公司的历史与文化变迁

这一部分深入探讨了波音公司的历史和文化变迁。从波音公司超过一个世纪的历史开始，讲述了其在第二次世界大战期间作为美国制造业的象征，制造了标志性的军事飞机。随后，段落转向波音公司在战后的发展，如何成为喷气式客机市场的成功新进入者，以及波音707、727、747和737等飞机的成功。然而，随着时间的推移，波音公司开始面临文化和结构上的变化，特别是在1997年与麦克唐纳·道格拉斯公司合并后，公司文化开始向财务纪律转变。这种变化导致了工程师与高层管理之间的沟通中断，公司逐渐从重视工程创新转向追求利润。此外，波音公司决定将总部从西雅图迁至芝加哥，这一举措被视为向华尔街发出信号，表明公司将基于回报而非传统或遗产来做投资决策。

10:02

🛫 波音787梦想飞机的挑战与延迟

本段落讨论了波音787梦想飞机的开发过程中遇到的挑战和延迟。波音公司尝试了一种新的飞机设计和制造系统，即外包大部分飞机设计和制造工作给主要供应商。这种方法旨在降低成本，但最终导致了严重的延误和预算超支。波音787梦想飞机原定于2007年亮相，但实际上只是一个空壳，真正的飞机晚了三年才完成，并且超出预算数十亿美元。供应商的问题导致了一系列的技术问题，包括引擎爆炸和电气火灾。尽管波音最终解决了787梦想飞机的许多问题，并开始获得巨大回报，但公司继续通过股票回购和支付巨额股息来提高股东回报，同时削减了养老金并雇佣了廉价劳动力。

15:04

💹 波音与空客的竞争及737 Max的推出

这一部分讲述了波音与空客之间的竞争，特别是在单通道飞机市场上。空客A320 Neo的成功促使波音推出737 Max以保持市场竞争力。波音737 Max的开发过程中存在压力，不仅要满足市场需求，还要摆脱787梦想飞机失败的影响。737 Max最终成功按时推出，但由于内部电子邮件的公开，揭示了波音公司在向联邦航空管理局（FAA）隐瞒关键安全系统MCAS方面的行为。这些行为导致了公众信任的进一步下降，以及对波音公司文化和决策的质疑。

20:06

🔄 波音的领导变动与未来方向

本段落聚焦于波音公司领导层的变动和公司未来的可能方向。前首席执行官丹尼斯·穆伦伯格（Dennis Muilenburg）被解雇后，戴夫·卡尔霍恩（Dave Calhoun）接任CEO，并开始在公司内部进行重大改革。卡尔霍恩强调透明度和信任的重要性，并承诺要改变波音公司文化，回归其工程创新的根源。然而，由于董事会成员大多缺乏工程背景，人们对波音公司是否能够真正实现转变仍持观望态度。卡尔霍恩表示，波音将变得更加开放，以重建世界对波音的信任。

Keywords

💡波音737

波音737是波音公司生产的一款窄体喷气式客机，广泛应用于全球民航运输。在视频中，提到了两起与波音737相关的致命事故，分别是狮航和埃塞俄比亚航空的坠机事件，这些事故导致了波音737 Max系列飞机的全球停飞。

💡坠机事故

坠机事故指的是飞机在飞行过程中发生意外坠落并导致人员伤亡的事件。视频提到了两起重大的坠机事故，分别是狮航和埃塞俄比亚航空的波音737 Max飞机坠毁，这两起事故引起了全球对波音飞机安全性的关注。

💡MCAS系统

MCAS系统，全称为Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System，即机动特性增强系统，是波音737 Max系列飞机上的一个自动飞行控制系统。该系统旨在防止飞机失速，但在两起坠机事故中，由于传感器数据错误触发了MCAS系统，导致飞机自动俯冲并坠毁。

💡安全文化

安全文化指的是一个组织内部对安全重视程度的文化氛围和价值观。在视频中，波音公司的安全文化受到了质疑，因为公司在追求利润和满足华尔街的期望时，忽视了飞机的安全性设计和飞行员的培训，导致了严重的事故。

💡华尔街

华尔街通常指代美国的金融中心，也是投资者和金融市场的代名词。在视频中，波音公司为了满足华尔街的期望，采取了一系列措施，包括财务工程和股票回购，以提高股价，但这却以牺牲公司的长期利益和安全文化为代价。

💡财务表现

财务表现是指公司在一定时期内的财务状况和经营成果。视频中提到波音公司因为737 Max飞机的停飞和坠机事故，导致了巨大的财务损失，包括数十亿美元的额外成本和首次年度亏损。

💡CEO

CEO，即首席执行官，是公司的最高管理者，负责公司的整体战略规划和运营管理。视频中提到了波音公司前CEO丹尼斯·穆伦伯格（Dennis Muilenburg）因为737 Max飞机问题被解职，而戴夫·卡尔霍恩（Dave Calhoun）接任CEO后，开始进行公司内部的改革。

💡股票回购

股票回购是公司使用自有资本从市场上回购自己的股票的行为。这样做可以减少市场上流通的股票数量，从而提高股票价格和市值。视频中提到波音公司在追求股价上涨的过程中，进行了大规模的股票回购。

💡透明度

透明度指的是信息公开的程度和质量，使得外部人员能够清楚地了解和理解公司的内部情况。视频中强调波音公司在经历危机后，需要提高透明度，以重建公众和客户的信任。

💡工程师

工程师是指具有专业技术知识，能够设计、开发和维护工程项目或产品的专业人员。在视频中，波音公司的工程师文化受到了商业压力的冲击，导致公司在追求利润的过程中忽视了飞机设计和安全性。

💡航空安全

航空安全是指在航空运输过程中采取的各种措施和规定，以确保乘客、机组人员和飞机本身的安全。视频中波音737 Max飞机的坠机事故凸显了航空安全的重要性，以及波音公司在安全文化方面的缺失。

Highlights

狮子航空波音737坠海事故，无生还者预期。

埃塞俄比亚航空航班起飞后不久坠毁，157人遇难。

波音737 Max系列飞机因两起致命事故受到严格审查。

波音公司承诺将赢回客户和公众的信任。

波音公司是否因华尔街压力偏离了其原始使命。

美国证券交易委员会调查波音是否妥善披露737 Max停飞相关的问题。

波音的安全文化在华尔街压力下受到破坏。

波音737 Max的MCAS系统因错误的传感器数据触发，导致飞机自动俯冲。

波音和美国联邦航空局发布警告，指示如何应对MCAS系统问题。

波音737 Max飞机自2019年3月以来一直停飞。

波音公司文化变革，工程师与高层管理之间的沟通受到干扰。

波音公司历史悠久，曾是美国制造业的象征。

波音与麦克唐纳·道格拉斯合并后，公司文化和管理风格开始转变。

波音787梦想飞机项目出现严重延误和超预算问题。

波音公司通过外包生产来降低成本，影响了飞机的安全性和质量。

波音公司通过股票回购和支付巨额股息来提高股东回报。

波音737 Max的推出是为了与空客A320 Neo竞争。

波音内部邮件显示，员工对监管机构隐瞒了MCAS系统的存在。

波音前CEO丹尼斯·穆伦伯格因737 Max问题被解职。

波音新任CEO戴夫·卡尔霍恩承诺提高透明度，恢复安全文化。

Transcripts

A Lion Air Boeing 737

crashed into the sea this morning.

Rescuers have located debris,

but they do not expect to find any survivors.

Some of the warning signs, in retrospect

were there all along.

Some of the decisions, or changes,

were so subtle that people might not even have realized

the importance, as they were taking place.

And Ethiopian Airlines flight

has crashed shortly after takeoff

from Addis Ababa, killing all 157 passengers and crew

thought to be on board.

Boeing's best-selling plane

is coming under increased scrutiny

after another deadly accident.

We'll do everything possible to earn and re-earn

that trust and confidence

from our customers and the flying public

in the weeks and months ahead.

Boeing is an American icon,

revered around the world for its engineering innovation.

But with two crashes in under six months,

critics have asked if Boeing is straying

from its original mission.

The SEC is investigating whether Boeing

properly disclosed issues tied to the grounding

of its 737 Max Airliners.

One message described the 737 Max

as a plane designed by clowns, overseen by monkeys.

The safety culture at Boeing was corrupted

under pressure from Wall Street,

and executives, and board members

who were lookin' more at their bonuses

than they were at the integrity of the organization.

Boeing was playing a game, to a certain extent.

It was a game of numbers.

They were meeting Wall Street's expectations,

but unfortunately, that came

at the expense of the end customer, and the flying public.

The failures that happened at Boeing

are really complicated, and involve subtle forces

and cultural changes that have been underway

for decades at the company.

This is a story of how

an American icon lost its way,

and whether or not it can find it again.

2019 was not the best year for Boeing.

Just five months apart, two Boeing 737 Max planes crashed,

and the planes have been grounded since March of 2019.

There's simply no precedent, in aviation,

for a plane this important to be grounded this long.

In the first crash, Lion air flight 610,

something was discovered with the technology on the plane.

Investigators believe the plane's sensors

or its computers, had bad data suggesting a potential stall.

There was this software system,

known as MCAST, that stands for

maneuvering characteristics augmentation system.

This obscure flight control software

was created so the Max handled the same way for pilots

as the previous generation of 737s.

Black box data indicated that

a bad sensor had triggered MCAST,

which automatically pushed the plane down.

Within probably 24 hours of them discovering this,

Boeing and the FAA put out a warning,

indicating that this could occur,

and then also telling them how to counteract it.

There is a fix, simply flipping a switch

should have turned the automatic system off.

The second crash, however, the same failure.

I've covered dozens and dozens of plane crashes,

and one of my mantras has always been

that crashes don't occur for the same cause.

China grounded the plane,

and it just set off a ripple effect.

Any plane currently in the air

will go to its destination, and thereafter be grounded.

Boeing is an incredible company,

and hopefully they'll very quickly come up with the answer.

What had been billed as

a relatively simple software fix proved not to be so simple.

Every time it seemed like Boeing was just around the corner,

then a new issue cropped up.

MCAST wasn't the only issue on this airplane,

you had issues where the computers

were getting overloaded with information,

now there's a new issue that

the computers don't start up properly,

when you want them to.

And then, the first batch of

really embarrassing employee emails leaked.

The FAA is demanding answers from Boeing

after they waited months to disclose to the agency

internal messages between test pilots

who were working in the 737 Max flight simulator.

"It's running rampant in the sim on me."

One pilot, referencing the flight simulator.

"The plane is trimming itself like crazy."

The emails came out two weeks before

Boeing's Chief Executive, Dennis Muilenburg,

was due to testify before Congress,

and it was a bipartisan shellacking.

346 people are dead

because what these chief pilots describe as egregious.

You're the CEO, the buck stops with you,

did you read this document,

and how did your team not put it in front of you,

run in with their hair on fire, sayin'

'We got a real problem here.'

Ultimately, we don't quite know

exactly what caused the MCAST design,

just like we don't know all the causes of the crash,

we don't quite know, but it's very clear

that the one big cultural change at Boeing

had been a disruption in the communication

between engineers and top management.

But this kind of cultural change

for a company as old as Boeing happens slowly,

over the course of not years, but decades.

Boeing's history goes back over a century,

and while its early sea planes weren't iconic,

by World War Two, their military aircraft were.

When news of the successful raid

by the Flying Fortresses comes in,

these are the people who get the biggest thrill,

the thousands of Boeing workers who build them.

Boeing's an American manufacturing icon.

It was churning out bombers

that were critical to the allied defense effort,

and gave us Rosie the Riveter.

Sort of a symbol for American can-do culture.

Employers find that women can do

many jobs as well as men, some jobs better.

They were the great survivors of the post-World War Two

shakedown in aircraft design,

and the most successful new entrant

in the new jetliner market of the late 1950s.

The company gambled everything on a prototype

of what became its first jetliner, the Boeing 707.

Nearing completion

in the Boeing plant at Seattle,

America's first jet transport

is a unit of glistening beauty.

And that was followed by the 727,

and built this revolutionary behemoth, the 747,

you probably know it for the hump behind the nose,

and at the same time, they came up with what became

Boeing's greatest commercial success,

and that was the 737.

The 737 wasn't immediately successful.

It took several design and engineering iterations

to turn it into the plane that we see today.

It became a work horse for airlines like Southwest,

that fly primarily shorter routes,

and really brought travel to every day people.

And even as more and more

travelers flew on these aircraft,

the aviation safety record during this time

made flying one of the statistically safest ways to travel.

We've been the technology leader in aviation in the world.

Boeing was a magnificent company,

who made, in my opinion, the best airplanes in the world,

until some of these recent cultural changes,

which all came from pressure to Wall Street,

and bad management.

You know, over the years,

Boeing was this tremendously important

and innovative company,

but it wasn't necessarily a great stock.

In 1997, Boeing merged with McDonnell Douglas,

another aerospace and defense giant.

Boeing said

'let's do a merger, we'll continue with the innovation,

'and maybe McDonnell Douglas will help us

'in terms of our structure

'and telling our story to Wall Street.'

Almost immediately you began to hear

kind of a bitter joke coming out of Seattle,

that McDonnell Douglas had used

Boeing's money to buy Boeing,

and certainly, in terms of management structure,

it began to look that way.

Harry Stonecipher, a former GE executive

and McDonnell Douglas CEO,

becomes COO of the combined companies.

And more and more of the company's style and culture

began to be more of a McDonnell Douglas sort of picture.

He almost immediately signaled

there was a new sheriff in town,

and he was gonna bring financial disciple to Boeing.

Stonecipher would eventually become CEO,

and continued his emphasis on

controlling costs within the company.

A culture that engineers within the company

would begin to feel.

We had breakfast with the president of the--

This is Stan Sorscher,

he was a physicist at Boeing for over 20 years,

and felt these changes firsthand.

And he said he was so proud of cutting his

capital expenditure budgets by 60%.

Capital expenditures, for us,

were improvements in the factory, in our shop floor,

in processes and materials and things like that.

By 2000, there was a great deal of dissatisfaction

with the way our

problem solving culture was being displaced,

and we thought it was just much more difficult

for us to do our job.

And that's when a lot of people trace

this sort of fundamental shift in thinking

in terms of what you prioritize,

whether that be profits, or whether that be engineering.

Further evidence of

a move away from engineering prowess

and innovation, to profit, was Boeing's decision

to move company headquarters to Chicago,

when Boeing's jet manufacturing

and airplane designers were in Seattle.

Probably the biggest motivation was

to send a message to the Street

that this was a company that was not going to make

investment decisions on the basis of legacy,

or heritage, or anything like that,

but rather, purely make investment decisions

on the basis of returns,

and by moving to a place where there were no

legacy loyalties, no heritage production facilities,

they were sending that message.

And it also started to shape how

Boeing viewed its own internal investments

in things like airplane programs,

tremendously important as the company

started planning for what became the 787 Dreamliner.

Ladies and gentlemen,

your 787 Dreamliner.

For this event, it was held on July 8, 2007, so 787,

Tom Brokaw was there,

I was there just sitting in the audience,

just trying to soak it all in.

I think they raised the factory door,

and there was the plane.

But at the time, it was just, it was an empty shell.

We didn't know it, but it was all for appearances.

For the 787, Boeing attempted

a new system for designing the aircraft.

Instead of doing everything in house,

it would outsource much of the plane's

design and manufacturing to its biggest suppliers.

It was gonna be about outsourcing,

outsourcing to the places where

we could produce things more cheaply,

as opposed to the finest, best,

safest airplanes in the world,

which is what Boeing made for decades.

This works for running shoes, ladies garments,

cell phones, hard drives, integrated circuits,

it works for everybody, it'll work for you, and I thought

'No, it won't.'

Boeing had never done a plane using the system before,

this was very different from

Boeing controlling the processes itself,

and it did not go well.

We launched the 787, the worst I could think of

was that we'd be three months late,

which is a shooting offense at Boeing.

It wasn't three months late, it was three years late,

it wasn't 5 billion dollars over budget,

it was 30 or 40 or 50 billion dollars over budget.

Grounded the fleet for three months.

The suppliers were just in over their heads,

most of them, we had years of issues,

there was an engine explosion at one point,

there was an electrical fire on flight test aircraft.

And I thought

'Okay, this experiment is done.'

This didn't work.

And the executive said

'The business model is fine, we just didn't execute it.'

Every new airplane has growing pains,

especially those that kind of

push the edge of the envelope in technology.

Eventually, Boeing would fix

many of the 787's issues,

and the Dreamliner slowly started to bring in big returns,

and with a profitable plane,

Boeing looked at other measures

to boost its returns to shareholders.

There's different ways of getting your profit up,

so one is just that you make the best product imaginable,

and everybody wants to buy it,

and so your sales go up,

and you make more money on that plane.

The other is that you do financial engineering.

One common technique

for companies to boost their stock price

is a practice known as stock buybacks,

where a company uses its capital

to buy back its own stock from the marketplace.

And the math is really simple to understand,

if you have fewer shares trading, absent all else,

the price goes up, the shares worth more,

they get a nice return on their investment.

Boeing's stock was on the rise,

and by 2015, new CEO Dennis Muilenburg

would ramp the program up even more.

From 2014 to 2019, Boeing would re-purchase

about 38 billion of its own shares.

They went from a relatively normal percentage,

something like 30%, to over 90%

of cash being returned to investors.

And the contrast to pensions being cut

was really shocking,

and sort of a bitter moment for some people.

Buying back shares, and paying huge dividends,

while you're laying off senior engineers

to hire cheap labor in India, that's a sickness.

But while long time employees at Boeing

may have been frustrated, at the time,

this was viewed as a huge success.

In less than a decade, the company's stock price tripled.

Wall Street just loved this company, its stock shot up.

I see a new Boeing, I just see just straight line growth.

And Muilenburg was getting the rockstar treatment.

You're obviously a very accomplished executive,

you've done a great job for Boeing and its shareholders,

I wish I had bought the stock when you took over.

It's still a good deal. Still a good deal.

Around the same time all of this was happening,

Boeing was selling record numbers of its newest plane,

the 737 Max.

The 737 Max was born out of a competition with Airbus.

The aviation industry is

a duopoly between Boeing and Airbus,

with the two giants controlling

almost all of the jetliner market.

For both companies, it's beating commercial heart

is an enormously profitable family of single-aisle jets,

the Boeing 737, and Airbus A320.

While Boeing had planned to build an all-new jet

to replace the 737,

it was sidetracked by the Dreamliner debacle.

Airbus shocked everyone by announcing a simple upgrade

to its A320 family of planes,

in what became known as the A320 Neo.

Since the new planes had engines

that increased fuel efficiency

and required no lengthy training for pilots to fly,

it became a huge cost saver for airlines,

and a big hit for Airbus.

So Boeing had to do the same thing,

if Boeing didn't act, or waited too long,

they could lose significant market share.

American Airlines called Boeing and said

'We're gonna buy 400 planes,

'and they will all be Airbus

'unless you can match their fuel economy,

'and the fact that no pilot training is required,

'it's identical to their other Airbus models.'

And the Boeing CEO said

'No no no no, we'll match that,

'we want half that order.'

With the Max, Boeing was also trying to shake

the image of incompetence that had followed

the 787 debacle,

so there was a lot of pressure there,

to show that the,

'Hey, look, we can design planes,

'and we can meet deadlines with the Max.'

And to their credit, with the Max, they did.

Unfortunately for Boeing,

some of the critical engineering decisions that were made

came back to haunt them.

In late 2015,

Boeing's first 737 Max takes shape, right on schedule.

Flight testing begins in early 2016,

and in 2017, the Max enters the commercial market,

months early, and it is, in fact,

that fastest selling aircraft in company history.

You saw huge orders coming for both companies,

airlines seemed generally pleased with it,

and to be honest, they still are.

Even after the crisis, some of the biggest customers say

'You know what, this is a good airplane.'

But internal emails,

made public from investigators,

revealed that Boeing had gone to extraordinary measures

to get the Max into the air,

including some employees lying to the FAA.

The Chief Technical Pilot on the plane

described how he used Jedi mind tricks on regulators.

In one exchange, a Boeing employee says

"I still haven't been forgiven by God

"for the covering up I did last year."

The most disturbing thing we've found is,

there was a 2013 meeting,

and they conspired to conceal the system.

MCAST was created

so that the larger, more fuel-efficient engines on the Max

wouldn't make the plane handle any differently

than the previous generation of 737s.

At that meeting, they said

'Well wait a minute, wait a minute,

'if we tell anybody about this system,

'then they might require that

'pilots have additional training,

'and our bosses, from the top, in Boeing,

'and our contracts with the airlines say

'no additional training required,

'so we have to conceal this,

'no one outside Boeing can know

'that this safety-critical system exists.'

Another week, another shakeup at Boeing.

The company's former CEO, Dennis Muilenburg,

forced out after 35 years with the company,

and four years as CEO.

After firing Muilenburg,

Boeing would close their books

on one of the worst financial performances in history,

estimating 18.6 billion in total costs

for the grounded 737 Max,

and it would report its first annual loss since 1997.

Dave Calhoun, a member of Boeing's board,

was tapped as the next CEO,

and immediately starts to make

sweeping changes within the company.

The first couple of weeks on the job,

he moved very quickly to get any embarrassing overhang

from the last year, just clean out the cobwebs,

get all the bad news out there right now.

Trying to be more transparent,

Calhoun dumped even more damning documents,

and holds a conference call with reporters.

When boards reach a conclusion to change a CEO,

they expect change.

And they recognize the arguments

that have been presented from the outside world as legit,

and they're gonna experience

a different style of leadership,

a different way of doin' things.

But it's unclear whether or not Calhoun

will shift Boeing's priority away from pleasing Wall Street,

and return the company to its engineering roots

and heritage of creating top flight planes.

We believe this airplane's safer

than the safest airplane flying today.

Every next airplane has to be that way,

it has to be that way for Boeing,

it has to be that way for our competitors.

He's been on the board since mid-2009,

and also one of the, well,

almost all of the board members

that do not have an engineering degrees,

from a purely accounting background,

private equity, hedge funds, that kind of thing.

This is a bit strange, because on one level

a company really needs to change.

On the other hand, other than a shareholder emergency,

I'm not really sure

what would be the instigator of that change.

We are gonna have the most open book

the world's ever seen, on this subject.

Transparency is what we lost for a moment,

and it's something we have to regain,

because it speaks to the trust that the world has in us.

I am very hopeful that he can restore

the safety culture there,

so that they can focus on making safe airplanes.

The old days of simply harvesting cash

from legacy programs,

and returning it to shareholders, needs to stop,

and the idea of engineers being some sort of a commodity

that you can rely upon to come through for you,

that needs to stop, too.

The bigger issue of setting the tone,

changing culture, which, these things happen gradually,

bit by bit, he's saying all the right things right now,

about correcting course,

but we won't know for awhile as to whether

Boeing's on the right course.