Boeing settles 2.5 billion $ for 737 MAX accidents
Amounting to as much as $2.5 billion, the agreement Boeing Company has reached with U.S. authorities to end [...]
It amounts to as much as $2.5 billion settlement Boeing Company reached with U.S. authorities to end maxi-trial which had her under investigation for two aircraft accidents, one in 2018 and one in 2019, involving the Boeing 737 MAX.
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To these will be added a fine of more than $240 million, probably not the only one that will be charged to the aviation company.
At the root was a very serious fact: during inspections by the authority that regulates U.S. aviation regarding safety issues, some employees misled Federal Aviation Administration about some design elements of the 737, but most importantly On the timing of pilot training on the new model.
In addition, some details regarding the safety of the aircraft had been withheld from pilots before the agency approved the transport of passengers.
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David Calhoun, that is, Boeing's CEO, commented in a note as follows:
"This resolution is a serious reminder to all of us of how critical our obligation of transparency to regulators is and the consequences our company can face if any of us fail to meet those expectations."
"The 4-second catastrophe."
That was how one of the 737 MAX accidents was christened by the Wall Street Journal. Everything happened so quickly that there was no time to reason and the pilots were unprepared to handle the emergency.
Onboard instrumentation went haywire immediately after takeoff, the displays reporting altitude, speed, wind and other information gave completely different data than the co-pilot's, and from there an escalation that led to the accident.
At the root of this tragedy was precisely Boeing's mistake of assuming that pilots could handle any malfunction, even though hours of training on the new aircraft were insufficient and safety data were not complete.
The shortcomings of the Federal Aviation Administration
Undoubtedly Boeing bears heavy blame in this regard, but FAA negligence also contributed to the disasters.
It was the FAA itself that downplayed the concerns of some pilots who had tested the 737, chilling some intercepts:
"I have not yet been forgiven by God for all the cover-up I had to do last year."
A plane "designed by clowns with monkey supervision."
A "ridiculous" aircraft a "joke."
To these communications, the FAA had responded that there was "no safety risk that had not already been identified as part of the ongoing verification activities of the proposed changes to the aircraft."
The defective software
The cause of the accidents was found to be the anti-stall software mounted on the aircraft.
The 737 MAXs mount engines that are environmentally sustainable and efficient but much bulkier than normal engines, risking not having the thrust needed to fly properly and avoid stalling at high altitudes.
To remedy this problem, the software in question automatically lowered the nose of the plane to bring the aircraft out of the stall and regain speed, only for the software to send the plane into a dive and the pilots to respond late to the emergency, all of which was hidden in the approval process, with catastrophic consequences.
The judgment
The U.S. Department of Justice reached the resolution with Boeing based on several factors, including the nature and severity of the offense and Boeing's failure to voluntarily and promptly disclose the conduct of the offense.
The conviction is that of fraud and forgery to the detriment of the state and regulatory bodies; compensation to the families of the victims, however, does not exclude future personal actions by citizens involved in the tragedies.
