Bean counters may be behind Boeing’s woes

AIRCRAFT maker Boeing’s recent failure to bring back two US astronauts stranded in the International Space Station encapsulates the depth of the firm’s problems.

The drama began with the June launch of Boeing’s long-delayed manned flight to the station. But helium leaks turned a 10-day crewed flight experiment into a months-long ordeal. The two astronauts will now have to wait until February for Elon Musk’s SpaceX vehicle.

Boeing and Airbus are the world’s top commercial aircraft manufacturers. But some time ago, Boeing’s bosses apparently decided to put the interests of shareholders above all else.

There was a ruthless effort to cut costs without worrying about what that would do to its technical competence. In other words, bean counters stood over engineers.

A spate of accidents

The plane maker’s reputation started to slide in 2013, when there were cases of the new 787 Dreamliner’s lithium-ion battery catching fire. America’s airline safety agency said Boeing had assumed that an internal short-circuit within a battery would not cause a fire or affect other cells.

Then came the deadly crashes of its 737 Max jets. On Oct 29, 2018, an Indonesian Lion Air flight nosedived into the sea, killing all 189 people on board. The pilot had made a distress call shortly before losing control. The aircraft was almost brand-new, having arrived at Lion Air just three months earlier.

On Mar 10, 2019, an Ethiopian Airlines flight departed Addis Ababa. Shortly after take-off, the pilot made a distress call and was given clearance to return. But before the pilot could do so, the plane crashed, just six minutes into the flight. All 149 passengers and eight crew were killed.

In addition to the flight control system, which was at the centre of both investigations, reports flagged concerns with the onboard computers, wiring and engines.

It turned out that cost-cutting created the trouble. As the 737 Max was built differently from earlier 737 versions, it also handled differently. Boeing introduced a flight-stabilising feature, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), to bring its behaviour in line with that of earlier aircraft.

With the MCAS, Boeing decided that 737-qualified pilots did not have to train on a simulator before flying the Max. Instead, they were taught about the differences in an hour’s worth of training on a laptop.

The idea was to cut the cost and time required to certify pilots who had been trained on earlier 737 variants. Boeing treated the Max as just another version of the old 737 – but it was not.

The crashes dealt a huge blow to Boeing’s business, since the corporation had thousands of 737 Max orders on its books.

More recently, concerns have been raised about the 787 Dreamliner again. It has been alleged that these planes have structural flaws that could cause them to break apart. A change to the construction process had introduced shortcuts that caused parts of the fuselage to be improperly fastened together.

The revelation came after a door blew out off an Alaska Airlines Boeing Max in January. Again, it has been suggested, cost-cutting measures were to blame.

Perhaps Boeing should heed the advice of Tan Hock Eng, the long-time boss of semicon giant Broadcom, where engineers make up almost three-quarters of the workforce.

Having fewer non-engineers at a tech firm helps to “keep it simple”, said Tan. In Boeing’s case, it might also keep the travelling public safe.