Last Week Tonight With John Oliver (2014) s11e03 Episode Script
Boeing
Welcome to "Last Week Tonight"!
I'm John Oliver.
Thank you so much for joining us.
It has been a busy week.
Mitch McConnell
announced he'd be stepping down
as Republican Senate leader,
there was a Willy Wonka fiasco
in Scotland that answered the question
"What if you asked ChatGP
to plan a pop-up event for kids,
then shut your laptop
and walked into the ocean?"
And Joe Biden announced hopes
for an imminent ceasefire in Gaza,
while housing an ice cream
next to Seth Meyers.
And I really hope
there is a ceasefire,
but the lack of urgency from the U.S.
regarding one has been shameful,
especially as just this week,
more than 100 people were killed
after Israeli forces opened fire on a
crowd waiting to get aid from a convoy.
And a State Department spokesperson
tried to justify America's reluctance
to stand up to Israel,
before being spectacularly
United States does not dictate
to Israel what it must do,
just as we don't dictate
to any country what it must do.
- Unless you invade them.
Good one, Matt!
But come on!
That is brutal.
And I so badly want that reporter
fact-checking every press briefing
from now on.
"Listen, we'd never support settling
in someone else's homeland."
- "Unless they're Native American."
- "Yeah, yeah, right, right.
But we'd never bomb
innocent civilians."
- "Unless it's by drone."
- "Fair point. Fair point. Good one.
- But we'd never destroy their villages."
- "Unless they're Vietnamese!"
"Come on, Matt! Come on!"
But we're gonna turn
to the Supreme Court,
which on Wednesday
made a big decision.
Tonight, the Supreme Court
says it will take up former president
Donald Trump's claim
of absolute presidential immunity,
as he faces criminal charges
brought by special counsel Jack Smith
for alleged efforts to overturn
the results of the 2020 election.
The court now taking
on a monumental unanswered question:
can a former president
be criminally prosecuted
for actions taken while in office?
It's an interesting question
and, real quick, yes.
A former president can be criminally
prosecuted for actions taken in office.
It is one of those questions to which
the answer should really be obvious,
like "Did Robert Durst
kill those people?"
or "Which cereal mascot
fucks the most?"
or "Who should play
the next Batman?"
And for the record,
the answers are absolutely,
it's not even close,
and Natasha Lyonne.
And when this case
went before the D.C. circuit court,
one exchange with a Trump lawyer
illustrated just how absurd
Trump's position is,
as a judge posed
this wild hypothetical.
Could a president
who ordered SEAL Team Six
to assassinate a political rival,
who was not impeached,
would he be subject
to criminal prosecution?
If he were impeached
and convicted first.
Only under those conditions?
It feels like the answer to "Can the
president kill a guy?" shouldn't be
"No, unless half the people in Congress
think the other guy had it coming".
But no matter what the court decides,
the very fact that they are taking
this case up at all is meaningful.
The delay is already
something of a Trump victory,
raising the real possibility
that the trial could be pushed back
until after the presidential election.
Right. And if Trump wins that election,
who knows what happens then?
Fingers crossed the sun explodes,
but that is an outside chance.
So, it seems like consequences
for the insurrection
could be yet another thing
that Trump tries to kick down the road,
ignoring it
and hoping it goes away,
like his various debts,
or multiple court cases,
or acknowledging
any of his children's birthdays.
Though I will say, fun fact:
this one's birthday? January 6th.
It's true, and a wonderful reminder
that Trump's the only politician
in D.C. during the riot
who considers that
to be the second worst thing
to happen to him on January 6th.
And on top of all this,
the Supreme Court has a pretty
glaring conflict of interest here.
Specifically, this conflict of interest.
Clarence Thomas doesn't seem
to have recused himself from this case,
despite-as we've mentioned before
his wife supporting Trump's efforts
to overturn the election.
So, Thomas is in a difficult
ethical situation here,
and it feels really important
to remind him, there is a way out.
A smooth, spacious, luxurious way out
that comes with plenty of gas money.
But the window to take our offer
closes in two weeks, Clarence!
So, please, do get in touch!
I've got a contract with both
of our names on it right here!
Exactly! And now, this!
Newscasters React
to a Seasonal Phenomenon.
While many of us have been dealing
with falling snow this week,
Floridians are watching
for falling iguanas.
So, they're cold-blooded creatures
which means they take
on the temperature of the outside.
And once it's 50 degrees, remember,
they want the warm stuff,
they start to slow down,
at 45, they're out.
Right now,
we are under an iguana advisory.
That means that temperatures are going
to drop between 38 and 45 degrees.
Here we have the iguana-cast here
especially for you, Chris.
Becoming sluggish.
No, the iguanas are not dead.
It takes a long time and really,
really cold air for that to happen.
So, if you do see
an iguana on the ground,
do not pick it up,
don't take it home with you.
You think they're not well.
You pick them up,
you put them in your car,
you bring them to your home,
to warm them up
and make sure they're okay.
They wake up now
when they thaw out and they're angry.
I imagine it's like a bear
coming out of hibernation.
But they've got the claws,
they've got the teeth.
I fell asleep in a tree,
I woke up in your foyer.
What is going on around here?
They freak out.
And they fall out of the trees
and then you're supposed to kill them
because they're an invasive species,
it's crazy.
- I didn't know about that.
- What?
You're encouraged
to kill them when they're stunned.
Florida's a crazy place!
Moving on. Our main story tonight
concerns airplanes.
The place you go to say
"I'll get some reading done!"
before watching nine episodes
of "The Office"
you've already seen
and landing in Tucson.
Planes make many of us nervous,
even though commercial air travel is
the safest form of mass transportation.
But accidents do happen.
And there was one recently
that got a lot of attention.
Passengers are sharing
their terrifying experience
on board an Alaska Airlines plane
that lost a door plug during flight.
What was supposed to be a short trip
from Portland to Ontario, California
for Garrett Cunningham
turned out to be one of the most
frightening experiences of his life.
and part of the plane is gone.
My brain couldn't compute
what I was looking at.
Of course it couldn't.
Our minds filter out things
that shouldn't make sense.
Mine refuses to acknowledge
that tomatoes are fruits,
or that the shoebill isn't extinct.
Does that look like something
that should exist
at the same time as the iPad?
I think not.
Thankfully, that flight landed
safely with only a few injuries,
but experts say that
that was mostly luck.
For one thing, if someone had been
sitting in the window seat,
with their seatbelt off, they could've
been sucked out of the plane.
And second,
this happened just after takeoff,
but if they'd been at cruising altitude
"injuries might've been catastrophic".
And that plane was almost new.
It had been delivered
by the manufacturer, Boeing,
around two months earlier.
And that's too soon
for a sneaker to fall apart,
let alone
a multi-million dollar aircraft.
Boeing's CEO, Dave Calhoun,
was quick to take responsibility,
saying "Boeing is accountable",
but when pressed on exactly what
had taken place, had an odd response.
How did an unsafe airplane fly
in the first place?
Because a quality escape occurred.
What is a quality escape?
I think that's the description of what
people are finding in their inspections.
Anything that could potentially
contribute to an accident.
What?
Quality didn't escape,
a part of the plane did.
That's a terrible answer.
When you're asked how an unsafe
plane flew in the first place,
we need more information than,
essentially, "the plane was unsafe".
Everybody knows that! There's
a fucking hole in the side of it.
And the exact nature of the escape
is pretty alarming,
given that, according
to the preliminary investigation,
four bolts that were supposed to keep
the door plug in place were missing.
And when Alaska
checked their other Max 9 planes,
they found loose bolts
on many of them.
The next day, the FAA announced
that every Boeing 737-9 Max
with a plug door would be grounded,
until they were inspected.
Which is a bit of a relief and,
honestly, kind of a fun image.
I like to imagine stern FAA inspectors
going up to each plane
and saying "You are grounded, missy!
No in-flight TV for a month!"
And yes, planes are girls.
'Cause think about it:
they always have snacks
and constantly say
"Leaving right now!" and then
don't move for another 15 minutes.
Case closed.
It's beginning to feel like this might
be a much broader issue within Boeing.
It comes on the heels of a years-long
string of alarming incidents,
from fires on board
to a pair of massive crashes,
that were blamed
on flawed Boeing planes.
And just this week, the FAA issued
a stunning order to the company.
The Federal Aviation Administration
gave Boeing 90 days now
to come up with a plan
to address safety issues.
This comes after a report released
on Monday found employees
did not understand
their role in safety,
and they feared retaliation
for raising safety-related concerns.
Those are big problems when you've
got a factory that is making jets.
Yeah, of course!
Although, to be fair, workers
being unable to raise safety concerns
is a big problem in a factory
that makes anything.
No one wants grocery stores selling
"Cap'n Crunch: Oops! All Rat Poison".
All of this is striking, for a company
that genuinely used to be seen
as one of the greatest in America,
and that's still one
of the country's largest exporters.
If a company this big and this
important seems to be this troubled,
tonight, let's talk about Boeing.
And let's start with the fact that
Boeing used to be synonymous
with quality and craftsmanship.
It was founded
by William Boeing in 1916,
and over the years, it built nearly
100,000 planes for the Allied forces,
"the first stage of the Saturn
V rocket" and Air Force One.
But they're best known for
revolutionizing commercial aviation.
In 1967,
Boeing introduced the 737,
and have made
over 10,000 of them since.
The company's success rests on its
well-earned reputation for excellence,
like in this video
from an annual shareholder meeting.
The first step in making a difference
is believing you can.
We make the impossible happen
on a regular basis.
So, it can be done, you just have
to think of a new way to do it.
Let's just do it right. Whatever it is,
quality, safety, environment,
do it right and make it something
that you can be proud of.
I wanted to develop product that had
a global reach and a global impact.
And I'm doing it now.
I mean, that sounds pretty good!
"We do the impossible!"
Great! Love the impossible.
"Let's just do it right!" Yes! Let's!
Wrong feels like a bad way to do it!
"I wanted to develop a globally
impactful product and I did!"
Good for you!
You're a little too close to the camera
but in general, I am on board!
In fact, Boeing had such a great
reputation for safety among pilots,
there was even a common saying
"If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going",
which the company
put on T-shirts, lanyards,
and mugs that you can still buy
on their website,
all perfect gifts for someone
who loves branded merch
and does not love
following the news.
And that stellar reputation
has been credited to the company's
engineer-centered open culture.
William Boeing himself once said,
after noticing some shoddy workmanship
on his production line,
that he would "close up shop rather
than send out work of this kind".
And one project leader in the '80s
and early '90s is remembered for saying
"no secrets," and "the only thing
that will make me rip off your head
and shit down your neck
is withholding information".
And I'm sorry,
but that should be the mug.
You want to shift merch?
That's how you do it.
But it's pretty clear that we're
a long way from that culture today.
And most observers will trace the shift
back to this pivotal event.
A major announcement today
in the world of aviation:
Boeing and McDonnell Douglas
today announced
they would join together to form the
world's largest aircraft manufacturer.
This is, I believe,
an historic moment
in aviation and aerospace.
Yeah, the sky boys
got business married!
Boeing merged
with McDonnell Douglas,
who were primarily known
for military planes,
and had a lousy reputation
for commercial airliners,
most notably the DC-10,
which had multiple accidents resulting
in over 1,100 passenger fatalities.
And look, was merging
with the McDonnell Douglas aerospace
manufacturing corporation
slash murder emporium
that Boeing CEO's worst decision?
Probably not, because he also,
and this is true,
married his first cousin, so the last
decision I'd ask this guy to make
is who it's a good idea
to couple up with.
And while Boeing
was the acquirer in the partnership,
it soon became clear
that the McDonnell Douglas culture,
which was much more cutthroat
and profit driven,
was going to become dominant.
Early on, the McDonnell Douglas
management team
even gave their Boeing counterparts
a plaque featuring
an Economist magazine cover
about the challenges
of corporate mergers.
Which sounds benign
until you see that the actual cover
was this picture
of two camels fucking,
and McDonnell Douglas
execs added the line: "Who's on top?"
And setting aside the weirdness of
gifting your coworkers camel porn,
it begs the question:
what was going
on at The Economist back then?
Spare a thought for the employee who
dreamt of doing business journalism,
only to find themselves digging
through photos of horned-up camel sluts
banging in the dirt.
A year after the merger
was finalized,
Boeing announced
a new stock buyback program,
taking company money
that could have gone to making planes
and using it to inflate
stock prices instead.
And even mechanics at the company
noticed the culture shift.
There was a major campaign
launched called ShareValue.
They wanted everybody
to be aware of the stock price,
and they wanted everybody working
together to increase the stock value.
Even in the technical meetings,
everything revolved
around Boeing stock prices.
That's not reassuring,
because that's not where you want
their priorities focused.
No one wants to get
on a plane and hear
"Good afternoon,
this is your captain speaking,
we had a few technical problems,
but our maintenance crew
has assured us that the stock price
is still holding strong,
so let's get this big metal tube
full of you
and your loved ones up in the sky,
shall we?"
And the culture change
was solidified by the decision
to relocate the corporate headquarters
from Seattle,
where their commercial planes
were actually designed and built,
2,000 miles away to Chicago,
because, as their CEO put it
"When the headquarters is located
in proximity to a principal business,
the corporate center is drawn
into day-to-day business operations".
And yeah! It should be!
You're essentially saying
"We're gonna be making big
business decisions over here,
so we don't need to be bothered
with you nerds
and your 'keeping planes
in the air' bullshit".
CEO Phil Condit soon left the company
amid a contracting scandal,
and was replaced by Harry Stonecipher,
the former CEO of McDonnell Douglas.
He was an aggressive cost cutter
who pushed Boeing's management
to play tougher with its workforce,
and to introduce the slogan
"Less family, more team".
Which, frankly, would have been
great advice for Phil Condit
when he was choosing
a romantic partner.
"Less family, Phil.
You want to be a team.
But, like, not one
that's related by blood".
But the problems with the whole
"stock price-first" approach
soon became apparent during the
production of the 787 Dreamliner.
It was a new, lighter plane
that Boeing announced in 2004,
but Stonecipher drastically cut
the R&D budget-you know,
the money for creating the plane,
even as the company
authorized large stock buybacks
and dividends for investors.
Under his plans,
the Dreamliner would be de-developed
for "less than half of what their
previous new plane had cost".
Boeing sought savings by outsourcing
production to about 50 suppliers,
each of whom was responsible
for managing its own subcontractors.
So, basically, the plan
was for Boeing to create the plane
the same way someone creates
a gingerbread house from a kit:
essentially assembling
a bunch of pieces other people made,
leading to a finished product
that, structurally-speaking,
was always going to be
a fucking mess.
And years later, Boeing itself
produced a promotional video
that admitted
that plan was a fiasco.
Executing a project
of such complexity
proved to be more
than some suppliers could handle.
Wrinkles were found in the composite
skins from one supplier.
Fasteners were incorrectly secured
on sections of the tail.
There were gaps between units that
were supposed to fit tightly together.
We had our partners,
and then they had partners
who had partners
and the different cultures,
and the communication
was very challenging
and added a lot of complexity.
I's never a great sign
when you're talking about
the manufacturing process for a plane
the same way a doomed open throuple
talks about their private life:
"We had our partners, and then
they had partners who had partners,
communication was very challenging
and added a lot of complexity,
and long story short,
now we all have chlamydia".
And on top of that,
Stonecipher was forced to resign,
in the wake of an affair
with a Boeing VP,
and was replaced by the company's
third CEO in as many years,
Jim McNerney who, if anything,
accelerated the cost-cutting.
But despite all the setbacks
from outsourcing,
Boeing managed to roll out
the Dreamliner on time
in an elaborate ceremony in 2007,
except there was one small catch.
We were all inside the factory
with artificial lighting, big stage,
Tom Brokaw,
huge screens.
They opened the doors
of this giant assembly bay
and in rolls this beautiful,
beautiful aircraft.
We learned that the whole thing
was a sham.
Beautiful, isn't it?
Absolutely beautiful.
I realized the doors
were made of plywood.
This plane that we were admiring
was completely a shell inside.
What I realized walking around it
is that you could
look up in the wheel well
and you could see daylight.
What a historic moment!
So exciting to see
the unveiling of the first airplane
made entirely out of plywood
and lies!
The plane was supposed
to take its first test flight
within two months of that launch,
but unsurprisingly, that didn't happen.
In fact, the Dreamliner didn't carry
commercial passengers for years,
finally delivering planes
"three years late
and $25 billion over budget".
And almost immediately,
there were problems.
Multiple planes had fires on board,
including two in Boston and Japan
within nine days of each other,
which investigations
linked to a defective battery
made by a subcontractor
that Boeing had never audited.
So, the FAA grounded
the Dreamliner,
the first time it had grounded
an airplane model
since the McDonnell Douglas DC-10
in 1979, making it clear
that the wrong attitudes
had prevailed after the merger.
Basically, the wrong camel
came out on top.
And investigations revealed that
even people building the Dreamliner
were worried about its safety.
In 2014, Al Jazeera
released hidden camera footage
of a worker at a Dreamliner plant,
asking fellow employees
a pretty pointed question.
- Would you fly on one?
- No.
- You won't fly on one?
- No.
- Would you fly on one of the planes?
- I thought about it, no, not really.
- Would you fly on one of these?
- Probably not.
- I wouldn't fly on one of these.
- You wouldn't? Why wouldn't you?
Because I see the quality
going down around here.
- Would you fly on one of these?
- Yeah, but it's sketchy.
I probably would,
but I have kind of a death wish too.
It's true.
Out of 15 workers he asked,
10 said they wouldn't fly on that plane.
And honestly,
that last guy is almost worse.
If I had to pick between a plane
that 2/3 of workers refused to get on,
and one that would only
be ridden by Death Wish Dave,
I'd pick the former every time.
But while the Dreamliner
had its problems,
at least it never had
a fatal accident.
But that cannot be said
for Boeing's next plane, the 737 Max.
In 2011, as Boeing
was rolling out the Dreamliner,
its main competitor, Airbus,
was unveiling the A320neo,
a fuel-efficient update
of their already popular A320 planes,
and it was a wild success.
Boeing, caught completely off-guard,
quickly announced
a new fuel-efficient plane
it hadn't even engineered yet,
the 737 Max.
They wanted to get it out of the door
as quickly and as cheaply as possible.
McNerney even had a catchphrase
"More for less",
which became the company's driving
theme as it embarked on the Max.
And all the while,
under McNerney
and his successor as CEO,
Dennis Muilenburg,
Boeing continued to sign off
on massive stock buybacks.
From 2014 to 2018,
Boeing diverted 92%
of its operating cash flow
to dividends and share buybacks
to benefit investors,
far exceeding the money
that it spent on R&D for new planes.
Workers on the production line
for the Max
described a process
that valued speed over safety.
And one, a military veteran,
worried that corners were being cut.
What words would you use to describe
that factory at that point?
Dangerous.
Unnecessary-taking unnecessary risks.
He says he urged the Boeing manager
to shut down the factory for weeks,
to straighten things out.
And what was his reaction to that?
He said "We can't shut down",
and then I kind of got mad and said:
"You know, I've seen military
operations shut down for a lot less".
What was his reply to that?
I never forget. He said "Military
is not a profit-making organization".
What a response!
Because in a way, you're right.
The military
isn't a profit-driven culture.
But they do have a very high appetite
for death and destruction.
So, if someone who worked
there is going "Slow down a bit",
that seems like something
that should give you pause.
So, the Max was rushed
through design and production,
and with tragic consequences.
On October 29, 2018,
a Lion Air flight bound for Indonesia
carrying 189 people
including three children
disappeared from radar
just minutes after takeoff
and was found
to have crashed into the water.
No one on board survived.
Investigations later revealed that the
plane's safety had been compromised
by a series
of shortsighted decisions
Boeing had made.
Starting with the fact
that, to save money,
Boeing decided it wasn't
going to build a new plane,
it was just going to rapidly
modify its existing 737 model,
giving it new,
much bigger engines.
But that brought
some significant complications.
Because these engines are bigger,
they had to be positioned further
forward and higher up on the wings.
Boeing was worried about the plane
getting into too much of a nose up,
and then the plane could stall.
So, if it starts to pitch up,
MCAS was designed
to help the pilot level the plane out.
Yeah, they added a system
called MCAS,
or Maneuvering Characteristics
Augmentation System.
When the plane came close
to a situation in which it might stall,
MCAS would, in technical terms,
swivel the horizontal tail fin to lift
the tail up and push the nose down.
Or in non-technical terms,
make the plane go face down, ass up.
But there was a fatal flaw.
MCAS, which, again, could push
a plane's nose down on its own,
could be activated
by a single sensor.
The angle of attack sensors
protrude out on either side
of the fuselage near the cockpit.
If a "happy birthday" mylar balloon
gets stuck on that vane,
it becomes unreliable.
Believe it or not, we hit balloons.
We hit birds.
And all of these things
are not uncommon.
It's true, the whole system
could be compromised by a balloon,
a testament to how problematic it is
to use a single sensor,
and yet another reason
to hate balloons.
Think about it:
they're exhausting to inflate,
they scare the shit
out of you when they pop,
and uninflated, they just look
like a pile of clown condoms.
Balloons are terrible.
But it gets worse.
'Cause Boeing
didn't tell pilots about MCAS.
'Cause remember,
they decided to market the plane
to airlines as a money-saver.
And a massive selling point was
that the Max wouldn't require pilots
to be re-trained in a flight simulator.
That-that's a pretty big expense
for an airline,
as it takes pilots out of the air
for multiple days.
Boeing was worried that,
if they emphasized MCAS
as something new,
it might require more training.
So it told airlines and regulators that
the Max was so similar to the old 737,
simulator training
wouldn't be necessary.
And that is something even the mother
of one of the Lion Air pilots
whose flight crashed thought
was a bit weird at the time.
I said "You haven't had
a simulator training.
How can you go for Max?
It is a more powerful engine.
So, without a simulator,
how will you manage?"
He said:
"Mom, I've been given ground training.
They have given me a training on iPad."
I said, "What, an iPad?"
That is wild. It is bad enough
that iPads are replacing
half the staff at Panera Bread,
it is worse when they're replacing
practical training for dangerous jobs.
Boeing gave pilots a two-hour
iPad training course
that never once mentioned MCAS.
What's more,
it wasn't in the manual at all,
unless you count the glossary,
which defined the term
but didn't explain what it did.
And it turned out
that a faulty MCAS activation
was what had doomed
that Lion Air flight.
And when American Airlines pilots met
with Boeing executives after the crash,
and angrily pointed out
no one had been told about MCAS,
the answer they got
was ridiculous.
These guys didn't know
the damn system was on the airplane,
nor did anybody else.
We try not to overload the crews
with information that's unnecessary.
I would think
that there would be a priority
on putting things-explanations
of things that could kill you.
Exactly!
How is information about a system that
could crash the plane unnecessary?
It's not "all Fruit Loops
are the same flavor"
or "identical twins
don't have the same fingerprint"
or "if you give a mirror to a dolphin,
they'll admire their own genitals".
All of that is good information,
but unnecessary for a pilot to know.
But, "We put some software on the
plane that might try and murder you"
feels important.
In the aftermath of the crash,
Boeing told U.S. airline pilots
that they'd have "a software fix for
MCAS ready within about six weeks"
and the Max
was allowed to keep flying.
But they didn't.
The only thing they accomplished
in those six weeks were,
and you're never gonna believe this,
authorizing a record
$20 billion of stock buybacks.
So clearly,
they were concerned about safety.
Specifically, the safety
of their fucking stock price.
And so a little over four months
after the crash,
while Boeing was still working
on its six-week software fix,
Ethiopian Airlines flight 302,
a 737 Max jet,
crashed after MCAS
activated erroneously again,
killing everyone on board.
And by that point,
those pilots knew what MCAS was.
But they still weren't able to correct
its erroneous activation in time.
Three days later,
the FAA finally grounded the Max,
but only after all these countries
had first.
It was grounded for almost two years,
until Boeing developed ways
to make MCAS less error-prone
and easier to override.
And a damning
congressional investigation
later revealed internal messages
showing that Boeing
knew how dangerous MCAS was
throughout the plane's development.
In 2012,
one of Boeing's own test pilots
had failed to recover from MCAS
activating in a flight simulator,
a situation that he described
as "catastrophic".
And some of the messages between
Boeing employees were damning.
Hundreds of emails
and instant messages
show employees mocking the FAA,
the company,
and problems with the airplane.
One writing:
"This airplane is designed by clowns,
who in turn are supervised by monkeys"
That's pretty bad!
Although part of me
wishes that he'd kept going there,
"They're designed by clowns,
who are supervised by monkeys,
who report to caffeinated toddlers,
who are overseen
by a bunch of floppy puppies,
who are monitored
by a wasted bachelorette party,
whose boss is just a large
inflatable tube man".
So, you might reasonably be asking,
where the fuck are the regulators?
Shouldn't the FAA have caught this
before people died?
Given that the answer
is definitely yes, what happened?
The agency relied heavily
on Boeing employees
to vouch for the Max's safety
because they lacked the ability
to effectively analyze much of what
Boeing shared about their new plane.
One employee even said he thought
a presentation for regulators
was "like dogs watching TV",
because they didn't understand
what they were seeing.
And I really hope
that's not true.
I hope dogs do understand
what they're watching on TV.
Otherwise,
I did those deep dives on squirrels,
breathing out of a fucked-up
little nose,
and poodle anuses
for no reason at all.
And much of the oversight
was being done by Boeing itself.
For five decades,
manufacturers like Boeing
were allowed to use what they call
FAA designated inspectors,
first to certify that the planes
were airworthy in the beginning,
and then on the assembly line
to inspect each plane
as it went down the line.
Here's the problem. Those FAA
inspectors were employed by Boeing.
There's a conflict of interest there.
Of course there is!
Boeing was paying Boeing employees
to regulate Boeing.
It's the most incestuous relationship
we've seen in this story so far,
which is saying something
because, remember,
this guy was fucking
his first cousin.
While this system of self-regulation
has been in place for decades,
it was supercharged
from 2005 onwards,
after Boeing successfully lobbied
to reduce government oversight
of airplane designs,
basically allowing it
to regulate itself even more.
And unsurprisingly,
several of these Boeing-employed
representatives of the FAA
have said they
"faced heavy pressure from managers
to limit safety analysis
and testing
so the company could meet
its schedule and keep down costs".
At every point along the way,
the FAA either delegated
responsibility to Boeing,
or gave them
the benefit of the doubt.
Which hopefully
they will never do again.
Because Boeing,
like so many American companies,
seems to be coasting on a reputation
it built up over decades,
even as it squanders
it quarter by quarter.
And if you're thinking
"John, don't you work
for a prestige company
that got taken over,
and had the name 'Max' slapped
on its signature product?"
I don't know what you're talking about,
this situation is completely different.
New business daddy
is so mad at us all the time.
So, what now?
The truth is, Boeing's not going
out of business anytime soon.
It's one of just two major commercial
airplane manufacturers in the world,
So we don't need them to disappear.
We need them to get better.
The key question is,
can they fundamentally change?
Thanks in part
to pressure from the families
who lost loved ones in those crashes,
Congress did pass
bipartisan legislation
rolling back some of Boeing's ability
to oversee its own planes.
And it's encouraging that the FAA
is now insisting Boeing come up
with a plan to address safety
in 90 days,
though we'll see what that brings.
And Boeing will say it knows
that it's made mistakes in the past,
but that under the leadership
of their CEO Dave Calhoun,
you know, Mr. Quality Escape,
they are approaching the challenges
they currently face
with a new spirit of accountability
and complete transparency.
But it's really hard to trust that,
given that Calhoun served
on Boeing's board since 2009,
through many of the worst decisions
you've seen tonight.
And there's also the fact
that 737 Max 8 and 9 planes
are still flying,
despite an FAA directive last August
highlighting a serious new issue,
warning that if pilots on the Max
use an engine anti-icing system,
what one pilot described to us
as the equivalent of a car's back
windshield defogger,
in dry air
for more than five minutes,
it could shatter
the engines' housing,
causing a hazard
to window passengers,
decompression, and potential loss
of control of the airplane.
And while Calhoun claims
he's very confident they'll have a fix,
which is such great news,
in the meantime, Boeing
is asking pilots, once more,
to be the last line of defense.
One that we spoke to even sent
us a photo of this Post-it note
he uses in his cockpit to remind him
to turn off the anti-icing system,
along with an iPhone timer.
And that is too much pressure
for a fucking Post-it note.
They shouldn't be the last line
of defense against plane crashes.
They should be the last line of defense
against Sheila from marketing
eating your Chobani
out of the work fridge.
Boeing whistleblowers,
who want this company to get better,
have repeatedly said it won't change
until it has new leadership.
And Boeing may not be able to coast
on its reputation much longer,
as demonstrated by the fact that,
on booking sites like Kayak,
you can use this menu
to select specific Boeing models
and exclude them
from your flight search.
They've actually
moved that filter up the page
following a recent spike in usage.
And you know things
are bad when the general public
is getting this knowledgeable
about specific plane models.
Look, it is pretty clear,
something has to change at Boeing.
And it has to be
at the top of that company.
Because if you are truly
too big to fail,
that should mean
that you are big enough
to spend the time
and resources required
to fix the culture
that you have destroyed.
And in the meantime,
the very least you can do
is advertise the kind of company
you are in a much more accurate way.
At Boeing, we make the impossible
happen on a regular basis.
At Boeing,
we take pride in our work.
At Boeing, we-sorry, can-can you back
that camera up a little bit?
It's really close.
I'm sorry, it feels very tight.
At Boeing,
we believe the first step in making
a difference is believing you can.
And I'm not talking
about any difference.
I'm talking about a positive
difference, in share price.
The share price needs to go up,
and stay up,
like our planes do
almost all of the time.
Since its founding, Boeing has been
built on quality, safety, and trust.
And then we thought,
let's try something new.
I joined Boeing because I wanted to
invent things no one ever dreamed of.
And they told me
if I wanted to do that,
what I needed
was to invent a time machine to 1992.
I did tell him that,
and I think the joke landed,
like our planes
do almost all of the time.
Whatever it is we do at Boeing,
let's do it right.
Or let's do it
close enough to right
that no one can tell the difference
from the outside.
And then everyone
will just keep their mouth shut.
The engineers don't always agree
with our business decisions,
and we encourage them
to speak up.
And when they do, I usually say:
"What? I can't hear you!
Our offices are so far from Seattle!"
Airplane design is about precision,
care, attention to detail,
and then someone telling you
to work so quickly
you make the whole thing
vulnerable to a fucking balloon.
We like to cultivate a profit-driven
philosophy here at Boeing,
and we've got
the camel porn to prove it.
Who's on top? We are.
I'm doing what I can. I try to report
everything I see to the FAA.
See that? There's a bolt missing here,
so I'm gonna report it.
Hold on, getting a text.
- Do you work for the FAA?
I do the FAA's job, but I actually
work for Boeing. It's super allowed.
It's super allowed!
Apparently there's a bolt missing.
It's fine. Do you even know how
many bolts there are on an airplane?
Too many. You lose one or two,
that's a rounding error.
The boys on the factory floor
call me Usain
'cause I'm all about the bolts.
Also because I work really fast,
like scary fast,
like people should be scared
about how fast I work.
Is it okay if I take these home?
Quality is at the forefront
of everything we do at Boeing,
and sometimes it's so far
in front that it escapes.
Quality, come back!
Get back here, you!
I'm not sure I'd want
to get on one of these planes.
I definitely wouldn't get on one.
I would.
Yeah, but that's different
- A death wish thing.
- Yeah, the death wish thing.
We're Boeing and we're focused
on the important things:
raising stock prices,
increasing stock prices,
making stock prices bigger,
or elevating stock prices.
Delivering value to shareholders
at any and all human cost.
Boeing, we went to business school.
Get on our plane!
Thanks so much for watching,
we'll see you next week, good night!
Our planes are 100% safe.
Just so long as no one
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!
Why would you give me a balloon?
Don't just take it from me.
Take it from our branded merch.
"How many bolts are on an airplane?
Too many!"
It's so cute. Where are they?
Who knows? One or two?
Loosen up! Like the bolt.
I'm John Oliver.
Thank you so much for joining us.
It has been a busy week.
Mitch McConnell
announced he'd be stepping down
as Republican Senate leader,
there was a Willy Wonka fiasco
in Scotland that answered the question
"What if you asked ChatGP
to plan a pop-up event for kids,
then shut your laptop
and walked into the ocean?"
And Joe Biden announced hopes
for an imminent ceasefire in Gaza,
while housing an ice cream
next to Seth Meyers.
And I really hope
there is a ceasefire,
but the lack of urgency from the U.S.
regarding one has been shameful,
especially as just this week,
more than 100 people were killed
after Israeli forces opened fire on a
crowd waiting to get aid from a convoy.
And a State Department spokesperson
tried to justify America's reluctance
to stand up to Israel,
before being spectacularly
United States does not dictate
to Israel what it must do,
just as we don't dictate
to any country what it must do.
- Unless you invade them.
Good one, Matt!
But come on!
That is brutal.
And I so badly want that reporter
fact-checking every press briefing
from now on.
"Listen, we'd never support settling
in someone else's homeland."
- "Unless they're Native American."
- "Yeah, yeah, right, right.
But we'd never bomb
innocent civilians."
- "Unless it's by drone."
- "Fair point. Fair point. Good one.
- But we'd never destroy their villages."
- "Unless they're Vietnamese!"
"Come on, Matt! Come on!"
But we're gonna turn
to the Supreme Court,
which on Wednesday
made a big decision.
Tonight, the Supreme Court
says it will take up former president
Donald Trump's claim
of absolute presidential immunity,
as he faces criminal charges
brought by special counsel Jack Smith
for alleged efforts to overturn
the results of the 2020 election.
The court now taking
on a monumental unanswered question:
can a former president
be criminally prosecuted
for actions taken while in office?
It's an interesting question
and, real quick, yes.
A former president can be criminally
prosecuted for actions taken in office.
It is one of those questions to which
the answer should really be obvious,
like "Did Robert Durst
kill those people?"
or "Which cereal mascot
fucks the most?"
or "Who should play
the next Batman?"
And for the record,
the answers are absolutely,
it's not even close,
and Natasha Lyonne.
And when this case
went before the D.C. circuit court,
one exchange with a Trump lawyer
illustrated just how absurd
Trump's position is,
as a judge posed
this wild hypothetical.
Could a president
who ordered SEAL Team Six
to assassinate a political rival,
who was not impeached,
would he be subject
to criminal prosecution?
If he were impeached
and convicted first.
Only under those conditions?
It feels like the answer to "Can the
president kill a guy?" shouldn't be
"No, unless half the people in Congress
think the other guy had it coming".
But no matter what the court decides,
the very fact that they are taking
this case up at all is meaningful.
The delay is already
something of a Trump victory,
raising the real possibility
that the trial could be pushed back
until after the presidential election.
Right. And if Trump wins that election,
who knows what happens then?
Fingers crossed the sun explodes,
but that is an outside chance.
So, it seems like consequences
for the insurrection
could be yet another thing
that Trump tries to kick down the road,
ignoring it
and hoping it goes away,
like his various debts,
or multiple court cases,
or acknowledging
any of his children's birthdays.
Though I will say, fun fact:
this one's birthday? January 6th.
It's true, and a wonderful reminder
that Trump's the only politician
in D.C. during the riot
who considers that
to be the second worst thing
to happen to him on January 6th.
And on top of all this,
the Supreme Court has a pretty
glaring conflict of interest here.
Specifically, this conflict of interest.
Clarence Thomas doesn't seem
to have recused himself from this case,
despite-as we've mentioned before
his wife supporting Trump's efforts
to overturn the election.
So, Thomas is in a difficult
ethical situation here,
and it feels really important
to remind him, there is a way out.
A smooth, spacious, luxurious way out
that comes with plenty of gas money.
But the window to take our offer
closes in two weeks, Clarence!
So, please, do get in touch!
I've got a contract with both
of our names on it right here!
Exactly! And now, this!
Newscasters React
to a Seasonal Phenomenon.
While many of us have been dealing
with falling snow this week,
Floridians are watching
for falling iguanas.
So, they're cold-blooded creatures
which means they take
on the temperature of the outside.
And once it's 50 degrees, remember,
they want the warm stuff,
they start to slow down,
at 45, they're out.
Right now,
we are under an iguana advisory.
That means that temperatures are going
to drop between 38 and 45 degrees.
Here we have the iguana-cast here
especially for you, Chris.
Becoming sluggish.
No, the iguanas are not dead.
It takes a long time and really,
really cold air for that to happen.
So, if you do see
an iguana on the ground,
do not pick it up,
don't take it home with you.
You think they're not well.
You pick them up,
you put them in your car,
you bring them to your home,
to warm them up
and make sure they're okay.
They wake up now
when they thaw out and they're angry.
I imagine it's like a bear
coming out of hibernation.
But they've got the claws,
they've got the teeth.
I fell asleep in a tree,
I woke up in your foyer.
What is going on around here?
They freak out.
And they fall out of the trees
and then you're supposed to kill them
because they're an invasive species,
it's crazy.
- I didn't know about that.
- What?
You're encouraged
to kill them when they're stunned.
Florida's a crazy place!
Moving on. Our main story tonight
concerns airplanes.
The place you go to say
"I'll get some reading done!"
before watching nine episodes
of "The Office"
you've already seen
and landing in Tucson.
Planes make many of us nervous,
even though commercial air travel is
the safest form of mass transportation.
But accidents do happen.
And there was one recently
that got a lot of attention.
Passengers are sharing
their terrifying experience
on board an Alaska Airlines plane
that lost a door plug during flight.
What was supposed to be a short trip
from Portland to Ontario, California
for Garrett Cunningham
turned out to be one of the most
frightening experiences of his life.
and part of the plane is gone.
My brain couldn't compute
what I was looking at.
Of course it couldn't.
Our minds filter out things
that shouldn't make sense.
Mine refuses to acknowledge
that tomatoes are fruits,
or that the shoebill isn't extinct.
Does that look like something
that should exist
at the same time as the iPad?
I think not.
Thankfully, that flight landed
safely with only a few injuries,
but experts say that
that was mostly luck.
For one thing, if someone had been
sitting in the window seat,
with their seatbelt off, they could've
been sucked out of the plane.
And second,
this happened just after takeoff,
but if they'd been at cruising altitude
"injuries might've been catastrophic".
And that plane was almost new.
It had been delivered
by the manufacturer, Boeing,
around two months earlier.
And that's too soon
for a sneaker to fall apart,
let alone
a multi-million dollar aircraft.
Boeing's CEO, Dave Calhoun,
was quick to take responsibility,
saying "Boeing is accountable",
but when pressed on exactly what
had taken place, had an odd response.
How did an unsafe airplane fly
in the first place?
Because a quality escape occurred.
What is a quality escape?
I think that's the description of what
people are finding in their inspections.
Anything that could potentially
contribute to an accident.
What?
Quality didn't escape,
a part of the plane did.
That's a terrible answer.
When you're asked how an unsafe
plane flew in the first place,
we need more information than,
essentially, "the plane was unsafe".
Everybody knows that! There's
a fucking hole in the side of it.
And the exact nature of the escape
is pretty alarming,
given that, according
to the preliminary investigation,
four bolts that were supposed to keep
the door plug in place were missing.
And when Alaska
checked their other Max 9 planes,
they found loose bolts
on many of them.
The next day, the FAA announced
that every Boeing 737-9 Max
with a plug door would be grounded,
until they were inspected.
Which is a bit of a relief and,
honestly, kind of a fun image.
I like to imagine stern FAA inspectors
going up to each plane
and saying "You are grounded, missy!
No in-flight TV for a month!"
And yes, planes are girls.
'Cause think about it:
they always have snacks
and constantly say
"Leaving right now!" and then
don't move for another 15 minutes.
Case closed.
It's beginning to feel like this might
be a much broader issue within Boeing.
It comes on the heels of a years-long
string of alarming incidents,
from fires on board
to a pair of massive crashes,
that were blamed
on flawed Boeing planes.
And just this week, the FAA issued
a stunning order to the company.
The Federal Aviation Administration
gave Boeing 90 days now
to come up with a plan
to address safety issues.
This comes after a report released
on Monday found employees
did not understand
their role in safety,
and they feared retaliation
for raising safety-related concerns.
Those are big problems when you've
got a factory that is making jets.
Yeah, of course!
Although, to be fair, workers
being unable to raise safety concerns
is a big problem in a factory
that makes anything.
No one wants grocery stores selling
"Cap'n Crunch: Oops! All Rat Poison".
All of this is striking, for a company
that genuinely used to be seen
as one of the greatest in America,
and that's still one
of the country's largest exporters.
If a company this big and this
important seems to be this troubled,
tonight, let's talk about Boeing.
And let's start with the fact that
Boeing used to be synonymous
with quality and craftsmanship.
It was founded
by William Boeing in 1916,
and over the years, it built nearly
100,000 planes for the Allied forces,
"the first stage of the Saturn
V rocket" and Air Force One.
But they're best known for
revolutionizing commercial aviation.
In 1967,
Boeing introduced the 737,
and have made
over 10,000 of them since.
The company's success rests on its
well-earned reputation for excellence,
like in this video
from an annual shareholder meeting.
The first step in making a difference
is believing you can.
We make the impossible happen
on a regular basis.
So, it can be done, you just have
to think of a new way to do it.
Let's just do it right. Whatever it is,
quality, safety, environment,
do it right and make it something
that you can be proud of.
I wanted to develop product that had
a global reach and a global impact.
And I'm doing it now.
I mean, that sounds pretty good!
"We do the impossible!"
Great! Love the impossible.
"Let's just do it right!" Yes! Let's!
Wrong feels like a bad way to do it!
"I wanted to develop a globally
impactful product and I did!"
Good for you!
You're a little too close to the camera
but in general, I am on board!
In fact, Boeing had such a great
reputation for safety among pilots,
there was even a common saying
"If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going",
which the company
put on T-shirts, lanyards,
and mugs that you can still buy
on their website,
all perfect gifts for someone
who loves branded merch
and does not love
following the news.
And that stellar reputation
has been credited to the company's
engineer-centered open culture.
William Boeing himself once said,
after noticing some shoddy workmanship
on his production line,
that he would "close up shop rather
than send out work of this kind".
And one project leader in the '80s
and early '90s is remembered for saying
"no secrets," and "the only thing
that will make me rip off your head
and shit down your neck
is withholding information".
And I'm sorry,
but that should be the mug.
You want to shift merch?
That's how you do it.
But it's pretty clear that we're
a long way from that culture today.
And most observers will trace the shift
back to this pivotal event.
A major announcement today
in the world of aviation:
Boeing and McDonnell Douglas
today announced
they would join together to form the
world's largest aircraft manufacturer.
This is, I believe,
an historic moment
in aviation and aerospace.
Yeah, the sky boys
got business married!
Boeing merged
with McDonnell Douglas,
who were primarily known
for military planes,
and had a lousy reputation
for commercial airliners,
most notably the DC-10,
which had multiple accidents resulting
in over 1,100 passenger fatalities.
And look, was merging
with the McDonnell Douglas aerospace
manufacturing corporation
slash murder emporium
that Boeing CEO's worst decision?
Probably not, because he also,
and this is true,
married his first cousin, so the last
decision I'd ask this guy to make
is who it's a good idea
to couple up with.
And while Boeing
was the acquirer in the partnership,
it soon became clear
that the McDonnell Douglas culture,
which was much more cutthroat
and profit driven,
was going to become dominant.
Early on, the McDonnell Douglas
management team
even gave their Boeing counterparts
a plaque featuring
an Economist magazine cover
about the challenges
of corporate mergers.
Which sounds benign
until you see that the actual cover
was this picture
of two camels fucking,
and McDonnell Douglas
execs added the line: "Who's on top?"
And setting aside the weirdness of
gifting your coworkers camel porn,
it begs the question:
what was going
on at The Economist back then?
Spare a thought for the employee who
dreamt of doing business journalism,
only to find themselves digging
through photos of horned-up camel sluts
banging in the dirt.
A year after the merger
was finalized,
Boeing announced
a new stock buyback program,
taking company money
that could have gone to making planes
and using it to inflate
stock prices instead.
And even mechanics at the company
noticed the culture shift.
There was a major campaign
launched called ShareValue.
They wanted everybody
to be aware of the stock price,
and they wanted everybody working
together to increase the stock value.
Even in the technical meetings,
everything revolved
around Boeing stock prices.
That's not reassuring,
because that's not where you want
their priorities focused.
No one wants to get
on a plane and hear
"Good afternoon,
this is your captain speaking,
we had a few technical problems,
but our maintenance crew
has assured us that the stock price
is still holding strong,
so let's get this big metal tube
full of you
and your loved ones up in the sky,
shall we?"
And the culture change
was solidified by the decision
to relocate the corporate headquarters
from Seattle,
where their commercial planes
were actually designed and built,
2,000 miles away to Chicago,
because, as their CEO put it
"When the headquarters is located
in proximity to a principal business,
the corporate center is drawn
into day-to-day business operations".
And yeah! It should be!
You're essentially saying
"We're gonna be making big
business decisions over here,
so we don't need to be bothered
with you nerds
and your 'keeping planes
in the air' bullshit".
CEO Phil Condit soon left the company
amid a contracting scandal,
and was replaced by Harry Stonecipher,
the former CEO of McDonnell Douglas.
He was an aggressive cost cutter
who pushed Boeing's management
to play tougher with its workforce,
and to introduce the slogan
"Less family, more team".
Which, frankly, would have been
great advice for Phil Condit
when he was choosing
a romantic partner.
"Less family, Phil.
You want to be a team.
But, like, not one
that's related by blood".
But the problems with the whole
"stock price-first" approach
soon became apparent during the
production of the 787 Dreamliner.
It was a new, lighter plane
that Boeing announced in 2004,
but Stonecipher drastically cut
the R&D budget-you know,
the money for creating the plane,
even as the company
authorized large stock buybacks
and dividends for investors.
Under his plans,
the Dreamliner would be de-developed
for "less than half of what their
previous new plane had cost".
Boeing sought savings by outsourcing
production to about 50 suppliers,
each of whom was responsible
for managing its own subcontractors.
So, basically, the plan
was for Boeing to create the plane
the same way someone creates
a gingerbread house from a kit:
essentially assembling
a bunch of pieces other people made,
leading to a finished product
that, structurally-speaking,
was always going to be
a fucking mess.
And years later, Boeing itself
produced a promotional video
that admitted
that plan was a fiasco.
Executing a project
of such complexity
proved to be more
than some suppliers could handle.
Wrinkles were found in the composite
skins from one supplier.
Fasteners were incorrectly secured
on sections of the tail.
There were gaps between units that
were supposed to fit tightly together.
We had our partners,
and then they had partners
who had partners
and the different cultures,
and the communication
was very challenging
and added a lot of complexity.
I's never a great sign
when you're talking about
the manufacturing process for a plane
the same way a doomed open throuple
talks about their private life:
"We had our partners, and then
they had partners who had partners,
communication was very challenging
and added a lot of complexity,
and long story short,
now we all have chlamydia".
And on top of that,
Stonecipher was forced to resign,
in the wake of an affair
with a Boeing VP,
and was replaced by the company's
third CEO in as many years,
Jim McNerney who, if anything,
accelerated the cost-cutting.
But despite all the setbacks
from outsourcing,
Boeing managed to roll out
the Dreamliner on time
in an elaborate ceremony in 2007,
except there was one small catch.
We were all inside the factory
with artificial lighting, big stage,
Tom Brokaw,
huge screens.
They opened the doors
of this giant assembly bay
and in rolls this beautiful,
beautiful aircraft.
We learned that the whole thing
was a sham.
Beautiful, isn't it?
Absolutely beautiful.
I realized the doors
were made of plywood.
This plane that we were admiring
was completely a shell inside.
What I realized walking around it
is that you could
look up in the wheel well
and you could see daylight.
What a historic moment!
So exciting to see
the unveiling of the first airplane
made entirely out of plywood
and lies!
The plane was supposed
to take its first test flight
within two months of that launch,
but unsurprisingly, that didn't happen.
In fact, the Dreamliner didn't carry
commercial passengers for years,
finally delivering planes
"three years late
and $25 billion over budget".
And almost immediately,
there were problems.
Multiple planes had fires on board,
including two in Boston and Japan
within nine days of each other,
which investigations
linked to a defective battery
made by a subcontractor
that Boeing had never audited.
So, the FAA grounded
the Dreamliner,
the first time it had grounded
an airplane model
since the McDonnell Douglas DC-10
in 1979, making it clear
that the wrong attitudes
had prevailed after the merger.
Basically, the wrong camel
came out on top.
And investigations revealed that
even people building the Dreamliner
were worried about its safety.
In 2014, Al Jazeera
released hidden camera footage
of a worker at a Dreamliner plant,
asking fellow employees
a pretty pointed question.
- Would you fly on one?
- No.
- You won't fly on one?
- No.
- Would you fly on one of the planes?
- I thought about it, no, not really.
- Would you fly on one of these?
- Probably not.
- I wouldn't fly on one of these.
- You wouldn't? Why wouldn't you?
Because I see the quality
going down around here.
- Would you fly on one of these?
- Yeah, but it's sketchy.
I probably would,
but I have kind of a death wish too.
It's true.
Out of 15 workers he asked,
10 said they wouldn't fly on that plane.
And honestly,
that last guy is almost worse.
If I had to pick between a plane
that 2/3 of workers refused to get on,
and one that would only
be ridden by Death Wish Dave,
I'd pick the former every time.
But while the Dreamliner
had its problems,
at least it never had
a fatal accident.
But that cannot be said
for Boeing's next plane, the 737 Max.
In 2011, as Boeing
was rolling out the Dreamliner,
its main competitor, Airbus,
was unveiling the A320neo,
a fuel-efficient update
of their already popular A320 planes,
and it was a wild success.
Boeing, caught completely off-guard,
quickly announced
a new fuel-efficient plane
it hadn't even engineered yet,
the 737 Max.
They wanted to get it out of the door
as quickly and as cheaply as possible.
McNerney even had a catchphrase
"More for less",
which became the company's driving
theme as it embarked on the Max.
And all the while,
under McNerney
and his successor as CEO,
Dennis Muilenburg,
Boeing continued to sign off
on massive stock buybacks.
From 2014 to 2018,
Boeing diverted 92%
of its operating cash flow
to dividends and share buybacks
to benefit investors,
far exceeding the money
that it spent on R&D for new planes.
Workers on the production line
for the Max
described a process
that valued speed over safety.
And one, a military veteran,
worried that corners were being cut.
What words would you use to describe
that factory at that point?
Dangerous.
Unnecessary-taking unnecessary risks.
He says he urged the Boeing manager
to shut down the factory for weeks,
to straighten things out.
And what was his reaction to that?
He said "We can't shut down",
and then I kind of got mad and said:
"You know, I've seen military
operations shut down for a lot less".
What was his reply to that?
I never forget. He said "Military
is not a profit-making organization".
What a response!
Because in a way, you're right.
The military
isn't a profit-driven culture.
But they do have a very high appetite
for death and destruction.
So, if someone who worked
there is going "Slow down a bit",
that seems like something
that should give you pause.
So, the Max was rushed
through design and production,
and with tragic consequences.
On October 29, 2018,
a Lion Air flight bound for Indonesia
carrying 189 people
including three children
disappeared from radar
just minutes after takeoff
and was found
to have crashed into the water.
No one on board survived.
Investigations later revealed that the
plane's safety had been compromised
by a series
of shortsighted decisions
Boeing had made.
Starting with the fact
that, to save money,
Boeing decided it wasn't
going to build a new plane,
it was just going to rapidly
modify its existing 737 model,
giving it new,
much bigger engines.
But that brought
some significant complications.
Because these engines are bigger,
they had to be positioned further
forward and higher up on the wings.
Boeing was worried about the plane
getting into too much of a nose up,
and then the plane could stall.
So, if it starts to pitch up,
MCAS was designed
to help the pilot level the plane out.
Yeah, they added a system
called MCAS,
or Maneuvering Characteristics
Augmentation System.
When the plane came close
to a situation in which it might stall,
MCAS would, in technical terms,
swivel the horizontal tail fin to lift
the tail up and push the nose down.
Or in non-technical terms,
make the plane go face down, ass up.
But there was a fatal flaw.
MCAS, which, again, could push
a plane's nose down on its own,
could be activated
by a single sensor.
The angle of attack sensors
protrude out on either side
of the fuselage near the cockpit.
If a "happy birthday" mylar balloon
gets stuck on that vane,
it becomes unreliable.
Believe it or not, we hit balloons.
We hit birds.
And all of these things
are not uncommon.
It's true, the whole system
could be compromised by a balloon,
a testament to how problematic it is
to use a single sensor,
and yet another reason
to hate balloons.
Think about it:
they're exhausting to inflate,
they scare the shit
out of you when they pop,
and uninflated, they just look
like a pile of clown condoms.
Balloons are terrible.
But it gets worse.
'Cause Boeing
didn't tell pilots about MCAS.
'Cause remember,
they decided to market the plane
to airlines as a money-saver.
And a massive selling point was
that the Max wouldn't require pilots
to be re-trained in a flight simulator.
That-that's a pretty big expense
for an airline,
as it takes pilots out of the air
for multiple days.
Boeing was worried that,
if they emphasized MCAS
as something new,
it might require more training.
So it told airlines and regulators that
the Max was so similar to the old 737,
simulator training
wouldn't be necessary.
And that is something even the mother
of one of the Lion Air pilots
whose flight crashed thought
was a bit weird at the time.
I said "You haven't had
a simulator training.
How can you go for Max?
It is a more powerful engine.
So, without a simulator,
how will you manage?"
He said:
"Mom, I've been given ground training.
They have given me a training on iPad."
I said, "What, an iPad?"
That is wild. It is bad enough
that iPads are replacing
half the staff at Panera Bread,
it is worse when they're replacing
practical training for dangerous jobs.
Boeing gave pilots a two-hour
iPad training course
that never once mentioned MCAS.
What's more,
it wasn't in the manual at all,
unless you count the glossary,
which defined the term
but didn't explain what it did.
And it turned out
that a faulty MCAS activation
was what had doomed
that Lion Air flight.
And when American Airlines pilots met
with Boeing executives after the crash,
and angrily pointed out
no one had been told about MCAS,
the answer they got
was ridiculous.
These guys didn't know
the damn system was on the airplane,
nor did anybody else.
We try not to overload the crews
with information that's unnecessary.
I would think
that there would be a priority
on putting things-explanations
of things that could kill you.
Exactly!
How is information about a system that
could crash the plane unnecessary?
It's not "all Fruit Loops
are the same flavor"
or "identical twins
don't have the same fingerprint"
or "if you give a mirror to a dolphin,
they'll admire their own genitals".
All of that is good information,
but unnecessary for a pilot to know.
But, "We put some software on the
plane that might try and murder you"
feels important.
In the aftermath of the crash,
Boeing told U.S. airline pilots
that they'd have "a software fix for
MCAS ready within about six weeks"
and the Max
was allowed to keep flying.
But they didn't.
The only thing they accomplished
in those six weeks were,
and you're never gonna believe this,
authorizing a record
$20 billion of stock buybacks.
So clearly,
they were concerned about safety.
Specifically, the safety
of their fucking stock price.
And so a little over four months
after the crash,
while Boeing was still working
on its six-week software fix,
Ethiopian Airlines flight 302,
a 737 Max jet,
crashed after MCAS
activated erroneously again,
killing everyone on board.
And by that point,
those pilots knew what MCAS was.
But they still weren't able to correct
its erroneous activation in time.
Three days later,
the FAA finally grounded the Max,
but only after all these countries
had first.
It was grounded for almost two years,
until Boeing developed ways
to make MCAS less error-prone
and easier to override.
And a damning
congressional investigation
later revealed internal messages
showing that Boeing
knew how dangerous MCAS was
throughout the plane's development.
In 2012,
one of Boeing's own test pilots
had failed to recover from MCAS
activating in a flight simulator,
a situation that he described
as "catastrophic".
And some of the messages between
Boeing employees were damning.
Hundreds of emails
and instant messages
show employees mocking the FAA,
the company,
and problems with the airplane.
One writing:
"This airplane is designed by clowns,
who in turn are supervised by monkeys"
That's pretty bad!
Although part of me
wishes that he'd kept going there,
"They're designed by clowns,
who are supervised by monkeys,
who report to caffeinated toddlers,
who are overseen
by a bunch of floppy puppies,
who are monitored
by a wasted bachelorette party,
whose boss is just a large
inflatable tube man".
So, you might reasonably be asking,
where the fuck are the regulators?
Shouldn't the FAA have caught this
before people died?
Given that the answer
is definitely yes, what happened?
The agency relied heavily
on Boeing employees
to vouch for the Max's safety
because they lacked the ability
to effectively analyze much of what
Boeing shared about their new plane.
One employee even said he thought
a presentation for regulators
was "like dogs watching TV",
because they didn't understand
what they were seeing.
And I really hope
that's not true.
I hope dogs do understand
what they're watching on TV.
Otherwise,
I did those deep dives on squirrels,
breathing out of a fucked-up
little nose,
and poodle anuses
for no reason at all.
And much of the oversight
was being done by Boeing itself.
For five decades,
manufacturers like Boeing
were allowed to use what they call
FAA designated inspectors,
first to certify that the planes
were airworthy in the beginning,
and then on the assembly line
to inspect each plane
as it went down the line.
Here's the problem. Those FAA
inspectors were employed by Boeing.
There's a conflict of interest there.
Of course there is!
Boeing was paying Boeing employees
to regulate Boeing.
It's the most incestuous relationship
we've seen in this story so far,
which is saying something
because, remember,
this guy was fucking
his first cousin.
While this system of self-regulation
has been in place for decades,
it was supercharged
from 2005 onwards,
after Boeing successfully lobbied
to reduce government oversight
of airplane designs,
basically allowing it
to regulate itself even more.
And unsurprisingly,
several of these Boeing-employed
representatives of the FAA
have said they
"faced heavy pressure from managers
to limit safety analysis
and testing
so the company could meet
its schedule and keep down costs".
At every point along the way,
the FAA either delegated
responsibility to Boeing,
or gave them
the benefit of the doubt.
Which hopefully
they will never do again.
Because Boeing,
like so many American companies,
seems to be coasting on a reputation
it built up over decades,
even as it squanders
it quarter by quarter.
And if you're thinking
"John, don't you work
for a prestige company
that got taken over,
and had the name 'Max' slapped
on its signature product?"
I don't know what you're talking about,
this situation is completely different.
New business daddy
is so mad at us all the time.
So, what now?
The truth is, Boeing's not going
out of business anytime soon.
It's one of just two major commercial
airplane manufacturers in the world,
So we don't need them to disappear.
We need them to get better.
The key question is,
can they fundamentally change?
Thanks in part
to pressure from the families
who lost loved ones in those crashes,
Congress did pass
bipartisan legislation
rolling back some of Boeing's ability
to oversee its own planes.
And it's encouraging that the FAA
is now insisting Boeing come up
with a plan to address safety
in 90 days,
though we'll see what that brings.
And Boeing will say it knows
that it's made mistakes in the past,
but that under the leadership
of their CEO Dave Calhoun,
you know, Mr. Quality Escape,
they are approaching the challenges
they currently face
with a new spirit of accountability
and complete transparency.
But it's really hard to trust that,
given that Calhoun served
on Boeing's board since 2009,
through many of the worst decisions
you've seen tonight.
And there's also the fact
that 737 Max 8 and 9 planes
are still flying,
despite an FAA directive last August
highlighting a serious new issue,
warning that if pilots on the Max
use an engine anti-icing system,
what one pilot described to us
as the equivalent of a car's back
windshield defogger,
in dry air
for more than five minutes,
it could shatter
the engines' housing,
causing a hazard
to window passengers,
decompression, and potential loss
of control of the airplane.
And while Calhoun claims
he's very confident they'll have a fix,
which is such great news,
in the meantime, Boeing
is asking pilots, once more,
to be the last line of defense.
One that we spoke to even sent
us a photo of this Post-it note
he uses in his cockpit to remind him
to turn off the anti-icing system,
along with an iPhone timer.
And that is too much pressure
for a fucking Post-it note.
They shouldn't be the last line
of defense against plane crashes.
They should be the last line of defense
against Sheila from marketing
eating your Chobani
out of the work fridge.
Boeing whistleblowers,
who want this company to get better,
have repeatedly said it won't change
until it has new leadership.
And Boeing may not be able to coast
on its reputation much longer,
as demonstrated by the fact that,
on booking sites like Kayak,
you can use this menu
to select specific Boeing models
and exclude them
from your flight search.
They've actually
moved that filter up the page
following a recent spike in usage.
And you know things
are bad when the general public
is getting this knowledgeable
about specific plane models.
Look, it is pretty clear,
something has to change at Boeing.
And it has to be
at the top of that company.
Because if you are truly
too big to fail,
that should mean
that you are big enough
to spend the time
and resources required
to fix the culture
that you have destroyed.
And in the meantime,
the very least you can do
is advertise the kind of company
you are in a much more accurate way.
At Boeing, we make the impossible
happen on a regular basis.
At Boeing,
we take pride in our work.
At Boeing, we-sorry, can-can you back
that camera up a little bit?
It's really close.
I'm sorry, it feels very tight.
At Boeing,
we believe the first step in making
a difference is believing you can.
And I'm not talking
about any difference.
I'm talking about a positive
difference, in share price.
The share price needs to go up,
and stay up,
like our planes do
almost all of the time.
Since its founding, Boeing has been
built on quality, safety, and trust.
And then we thought,
let's try something new.
I joined Boeing because I wanted to
invent things no one ever dreamed of.
And they told me
if I wanted to do that,
what I needed
was to invent a time machine to 1992.
I did tell him that,
and I think the joke landed,
like our planes
do almost all of the time.
Whatever it is we do at Boeing,
let's do it right.
Or let's do it
close enough to right
that no one can tell the difference
from the outside.
And then everyone
will just keep their mouth shut.
The engineers don't always agree
with our business decisions,
and we encourage them
to speak up.
And when they do, I usually say:
"What? I can't hear you!
Our offices are so far from Seattle!"
Airplane design is about precision,
care, attention to detail,
and then someone telling you
to work so quickly
you make the whole thing
vulnerable to a fucking balloon.
We like to cultivate a profit-driven
philosophy here at Boeing,
and we've got
the camel porn to prove it.
Who's on top? We are.
I'm doing what I can. I try to report
everything I see to the FAA.
See that? There's a bolt missing here,
so I'm gonna report it.
Hold on, getting a text.
- Do you work for the FAA?
I do the FAA's job, but I actually
work for Boeing. It's super allowed.
It's super allowed!
Apparently there's a bolt missing.
It's fine. Do you even know how
many bolts there are on an airplane?
Too many. You lose one or two,
that's a rounding error.
The boys on the factory floor
call me Usain
'cause I'm all about the bolts.
Also because I work really fast,
like scary fast,
like people should be scared
about how fast I work.
Is it okay if I take these home?
Quality is at the forefront
of everything we do at Boeing,
and sometimes it's so far
in front that it escapes.
Quality, come back!
Get back here, you!
I'm not sure I'd want
to get on one of these planes.
I definitely wouldn't get on one.
I would.
Yeah, but that's different
- A death wish thing.
- Yeah, the death wish thing.
We're Boeing and we're focused
on the important things:
raising stock prices,
increasing stock prices,
making stock prices bigger,
or elevating stock prices.
Delivering value to shareholders
at any and all human cost.
Boeing, we went to business school.
Get on our plane!
Thanks so much for watching,
we'll see you next week, good night!
Our planes are 100% safe.
Just so long as no one
Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!
Why would you give me a balloon?
Don't just take it from me.
Take it from our branded merch.
"How many bolts are on an airplane?
Too many!"
It's so cute. Where are they?
Who knows? One or two?
Loosen up! Like the bolt.