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You're watching CNBC On Demand.

In this episode of American Greed.

What brings down the 737 MAX?

It's still a mystery tonight. What caused this brand new plane to crash

ocean? The Boeing Company's fastest selling jet falls out of the sky. Not

but twice.

Pieces of the plane on a crash site the size of a football field.

In all, 346 people are killed.

I'm not able to go on with my life. I don't know how to live this life.

And the 737 MAX is declared unsafe.

The FAA today ordered the planes grounded in this country.

American Greed digs up the story of the jet that kills.

The deadly design.

This was by far the biggest blunder that I've seen, and there's no close second.

The frenzied production.

Make it work, have it fixed tomorrow.

And the stinging allegations of corporate greed.

You're continuing to work and make $30 million a year after this horrific two

accidents that caused all these people's relatives to go, to disappear, to die.

Every day around the world, millions of people board an airplane.

They sit down, fasten their seatbelts, trusting that the plane is entirely

That's what 24 -year -old Samya Stumo from western Massachusetts does in March

2019.

Samya is a non -profit worker preparing to depart Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

for a meeting in Nairobi, Kenya.

At 8 .30 in the morning, she texts her mother to say she is on Ethiopian

Airlines Flight 302, a new 737 MAX jet manufactured by Boeing.

A minute after takeoff, the captain reports a flight control problem.

And then suddenly, the jet angles down and begins to dive.

accelerating faster and faster, heading straight towards the ground.

Six minutes into the flight, Samya's Tumult's plane disappears from air

control radar screens.

I heard it in the middle of the night.

It was probably 3 in the morning, and I was in the laundry room. And every time

I went in the laundry room, I just turned on the radio.

They were saying that there was a plane crash.

I was standing in the laundry room, and I was just shaking. And I woke up my

husband, and he said, no way.

Go to sleep.

That is not true. It's not happening. And I had to wake him up again. And I

said, it is true.

The plane crashes into a farm field about 40 miles from the airport.

157 people are killed.

For many in the United States, it's just one more plane crash on the other side

of the world. But this one is different.

All their time from the moment the plane crashed, they spend the day here, they

spend their night here.

This is the second 737 MAX to go down in five months.

And this one will trigger international outrage and accusations of lies, fraud,

and greed at one of America's most respected brands, the Boeing Company.

Founded in Seattle in 1916, it's the largest aerospace corporation in the

with 140 ,000 employees.

and a market cap of $114 billion.

It's a business that literally changes the course of history.

Boeing's legendary bombers helped win the Second World War.

Its engineers helped take men to the moon and

revolutionize air travel.

And with each new design, Boeing becomes synonymous with trust.

of the actual core of Boeing, and that's the engineers.

Every day, pilots like Dennis Tager put their lives in the hands of Boeing

engineers.

I've seen the layers of protection, and on and on they go, and it's like, one

more thing, Captain Tager, we put this other thing in there, and I go, well,

bad is it going to get?

We're planning for everything.

And that's why practical, meticulous engineers like Stan Sorcher...

Love working at Boeing.

He starts at the company in 1980.

We had a lot of opportunities, you know, as engineers to make things work,

solving the right problems in the right way.

But in 1997, Boeing merges with McDonnell Douglas, a company that

brings to Boeing a cutthroat culture of cost cutting.

Let me say that this is a spectacular and wonderful day for the

people. Of the Boeing company.

But some say it is anything but.

In the years following, engineers begin to sense that their contributions are no

longer valued.

And before long, they face a new reality.

We really were not the center of the universe anymore.

And so, in February 2000, 17 ,000 engineers and technical workers do

surprising. What's being called the biggest white -collar strike in U .S.

history. They throw down their pocket protectors and walk out.

The rallying cry of the strike is, no nerds, no birds.

At the time, Stan Sorcher is a union leader.

But it was very heartfelt.

This was a furious, emotional moment.

In the end, the engineers win their battle for a new contract.

But the next year, Boeing executives turn their backs on frontline workers

move company headquarters to Chicago.

And many argue that a new Boeing is born.

It transformed itself from an engineering company into a financial

For more than 50 years, consumer safety activist Ralph Nader challenges

corporate profit -seeking. But Boeing will become a personal target.

Instead of focusing on engineering, research and development, it focused on

stock price.

It focused on stock options for the bosses.

And while Boeing denies the allegation, that focus leaves the company open to an

accusation of greed, because prioritizing the price of Boeing stock

bosses get rich.

You tie more and more of their pay to the stock price or something related to

the stock price, and their pay goes up, the money goes into their bank accounts.

They're saying, really what matters is getting the stock price up. And one way

to get the stock price up is for a company to buy back its own shares.

And Boeing does just that. From 2004 through 2008, Boeing spends $11 billion

on buybacks.

And that is just the start.

Now, stock buybacks don't create any jobs. They don't bolster pensions. They

don't get put in research and development.

They just increase the metrics for executive compensation.

for the guys at the top.

Years later, as Boeing continues to pour billions into buybacks, critics say the

company is engaged in a new kind of engineering, financial engineering.

So basically, everyone was geared towards this incentive by giving money

shareholders, having that keep the share price up, having that keep executive

compensation high, without anyone really questioning what this was doing to the

company. But in 2011, Boeing gets what could be a wake -up call.

4 ,000 miles away from Chicago in Toulouse, France, one of Boeing's top

competitors, Airbus, is busy producing the jet airline companies are desperate

to buy.

It's the A320neo.

Airbus promotes it as the answer to the high cost of jet fuel.

And with the NEO, Airbus hits Boeing where it hurts, luring one of its best

customers, American Airlines.

American was a longstanding Boeing customer, big 737 user. And basically,

went in and said, we've got the new engines. They don't. Fuel is expensive.

You need this.

And American broke with Boeing and said, yep, we're ordering it.

Suddenly, Boeing needs a fast answer to Airbus.

The company rules out designing a new plane and goes with a plan that saves an

estimated $7 billion and years of production time.

Airbus brings their trap, and the only thing we can do from, you know, standing

flat -footed is a derivative of the 737.

The 737, that's Boeing's workhorse.

A jet born in the 1960s that already has been upgraded over and over.

This time, the old machine gets large, fuel -efficient engines.

And an impressive name, the 737 Max.

Boeing's ads, like this one, are convincing.

But what does all this mean when you're running an airline?

It means for once, your decision is clear.

The new 737 Max.

Sold. The Max becomes the fastest selling jet in Boeing history.

With 3 ,700 orders at its delivery date.

Each jet is estimated to bring in a profit of $15 million.

This business is no longer a high -cycle business. This is a long -term,

sustained growth business.

Dennis Mullenberg, a top Boeing executive.

is appointed CEO in 2015, and he quickly becomes the 737 MAX's promoter

-in -chief.

Just to give you an example, our 737 production line, this year we're at 47 a

month. We're going to be taking it up to 52 a month.

Under Mullenberg, Boeing's commitment to stock buybacks accelerates.

He spends $30 billion in four years, bringing the total spent in seven years

$43 billion.

That's 104 % of Boeing's net income in that time.

Meanwhile, Boeing stock is soaring.

Boeing is on track to close its best month in 35 years. Not bad. In 2018,

Mullenberg's total compensation, pumped up by stock -based pay, is $30 million.

And they'd convinced themselves that really nothing bad could happen. Nothing

would derail this process. Everything was fine.

And Willenberg says, OK, this seems to be working. Let's keep going.

Up next, Boeing's fatal fix.

They had no limits on it. Not only was it powerful and violent, it had no

Yeah, I'm terrified.

On an October morning in 2018, in Jakarta, Indonesia, 181

passengers board a brand new Boeing 737 MAX, Lion Air Flight 610,

for a 75 -minute flight to a city on a nearby island.

Their pilot is 31 -year -old Babye Suneja, with more than 6 ,000 flight

under his belt, he is experienced.

But still, his mother, Sangeeta, who works in commercial aviation herself,

worries about his brand -new jet.

Because I'd seen the promo of the Boeing aircraft, you know, the new.

I thought it was a more powerful aircraft.

It was different than 737.

But Babier tells her not to worry.

Even if all the systems fail, I can land it safely.

You don't worry about me. In any situation, I can handle.

He was so confident.

But on this flight, moments after liftoff, Babier is bombarded by one

after another.

He's got unreliable airspeed. He's got stick shaker. He's got an altitude that

doesn't make sense.

And then it gets worse.

Two and a half minutes after takeoff, as the airplane climbs above 2 ,000 feet,

it inexplicably heads into a violent 700 -foot dive.

So the captain is now battling the airplane is pitching down. He doesn't

why he pulls back on it. And when he hits the thumb wheel switch, it stops.

takes a break. But then, as if the plane is possessed, it begins to dive once

again. Nose comes down and it runs faster than anything you've ever

For 11 minutes, the jet careens through the air.

So he battles this over 20 times.

All this other noise is going on. I mean, he is getting gut punched, head

punched, kicked in the shin, and a knife wound across the belly.

Finally, Babier asks the first officer to take over while he checks the manual.

There is nothing there to help.

Last struggling moment, he's the one who tried hard, you know.

The news pilots never gave up, but there's some point where the earth is

at you too quick.

Twelve minutes after takeoff, the plane dives into the Java Sea at 450 miles per

hour.

189 people are killed, including three children.

Shortly after, in Washington, Congressman Peter DeFazio, the chairman

House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, gets a visit from the head of

safety for the FAA.

He said this was a one -off, never going to happen again.

Maybe bad maintenance, maybe pilot error, whatever.

Pilot error.

Sangeeta hears that and hears her son being blamed for the deaths of 188

If you look at the history of aviation, any aviation accident that happens, you

know, the easiest thing is to blame the captain.

But this time...

The explanation is found in the trade -offs Boeing makes to upgrade its 50

-old 737.

Javier De Luis, an aerospace engineer and lecturer at MIT, who will pay a

personal price for the decisions Boeing makes, is dumbfounded by what the

company comes up with.

There was just a cascade of bonehead decisions that were made in this that

it's hard to even know where to start.

Boeing's problem is that it needs to position its new large fuel -efficient

engines forward on the wing.

But in the air, under certain maneuvers, that positioning can change the

handling of the jet, pitching it higher than pilots expect.

And so Boeing solves the problem with software, a program called NCAS, an

acronym for the Maneuvering Characteristic Augmentation System.

The software is designed to automatically push the nose of the plane

sensor detects the plane is pointing at too high of an angle.

There is nothing wrong with having computers control airplanes.

We've been doing it since the 1970s at least.

But Boeing makes a critically important choice, to have the software triggered

by just one notoriously unreliable sensor.

A little vein on the nose of a jet, and that decision will spell disaster.

I mean, airplanes are big, heavy things that we fill up full of fuel, and then

we tell them to defy the laws of gravity.

You know, we know that one mistake, one thing going wrong can be catastrophic.

That's why we beat into students, right? You have to have backups, and a lot of

times the backups have backups.

In this case, there wasn't any backup.

Joe Jacobson, a former safety engineer at the Federal Aviation Administration,

is stunned by Boeing's choice.

You know, I've got 36 years in the aviation business, and this was by far

the biggest blunder that I've seen, and there's no close second.

A blunder that is packed with power.

And Boeing designed it to go to the full nose down position. They had no limits

on it. Not only was it powerful and violent, it had no limits.

Beyond terrifying.

Up next, Boeing's big gamble.

The fact that their own analysis told them that there were likely to be lots

further accidents, that they did nothing, and they still did nothing.

In the fall of 2018, after a Boeing 737 MAX jet crashes shortly after takeoff in

Jakarta, Indonesia, investigators search for answers, focusing on maintenance

records, damaged sensors, and software.

But back in the United States, insiders like former Boeing engineer Adam Dixon

believe the problem is not software, it's culture.

Dixon works at the company for 30 years, starting in the 90s in the good old

days.

I had watched leaders who just were remarkable men and women who

put their career second to doing what they thought was the right thing.

But more than 20 years into his career, he says the notorious focus on cost

-cutting and stock price is deeply rooted in the company.

That's when he is assigned to work on the 737 MAX, where he says two things

matter most.

Time schedule and cost.

You know, make it work and have it fixed tomorrow.

Every worker knows there are billions of dollars at stake, and beating Airbus is

about beating the clock.

That's where all the pressures began that emanated down right from the CEO

the board.

right down to the least experienced line worker.

Hurry it up, hurry it up, hurry it up.

And according to Adam Dixon, when engineers voice concerns and make

they are often discounted. We often hear the term, they're just polishing the

apple. It's unnecessary and it's costly to make these fine improvements.

that maybe don't have a real impact.

At one point, Dixon persists in a safety concern of his own, not related to the

737 MAX.

He goes to his boss's boss.

And I just said, I have 25 years of experience in this area.

You know, please trust me on this. And he looked at me dead in the eye and

Adam, I don't trust anybody. Why in the world would I trust you?

And eventually, engineers learn to just keep quiet.

Certainly, engineers are not unintelligent, and when you have made

decisions that are unpopular, challenged by your own leadership,

you may not get an opportunity to work on the next new airplane.

And so, it is in that culture that serious concerns about MCAS are raised.

In 2012, a Boeing employee reports a finding that... If pilots don't respond

MCAS within a fast 10 seconds, it could be catastrophic, meaning people could

die.

In 2015, a Boeing employee raises a question about the critical flaw that

take down the Indonesian jet, questioning whether MCAS is vulnerable

-sensor failures.

But the concerns are either ignored or dismissed.

That's what that culture does.

You're denying that there's this risk. You're denying that there's this

shortcoming. You're denying that there's this thing that won't work.

Because it appears there is one overriding goal.

We've got to get these planes out the doors because we're getting all these

orders, and nobody wants to be the one who says, hey, we've got to go back to

the drawing board here.

But there is one risk that Boeing takes seriously.

spelled out in a summary of the minutes of a Boeing meeting.

If we emphasize MCAS as a new function, there may be greater certification and

training impact.

In other words, new software could mean the pilots have to be retrained, and

that will cost Boeing money.

They guaranteed some of their first customers a million dollars per plane if

they had to.

go to simulator training.

So the pressures started on day one before the thing was even fully designed

under production.

And so employees at Boeing, presumably looking to save that money, do not fully

disclose MCAS to the FAA.

Retired FAA safety engineer Joe Jacobson first learns about it after the

Indonesian crash.

I got an email asking if I knew anything, if we'd done any issue papers

And I had no idea what MCAS was.

And so my answer was, no, we haven't done any issue papers. What is it?

The concealment of MCAS is so thorough, it is even deleted in flight manuals.

And that is why, in October 2018,

Bob Yasuneja, hiding with his jet, checks the manual and finds nothing that

help. It was not in the engineering manual. It was not in the operation

manual. It was nowhere written. They had not mentioned.

A month after the crash, Boeing informs American Airlines executives about MCAS.

They said the MCAS misbehaved.

A little bit of software misbehaved. You're talking like this is a child.

This was a beast wrapped in a cage that we knew nothing about.

And when you let it out, we didn't know about it, and it ran.

Havoc throughout the cockpit.

It's good to see you this morning. Good to see you, Maria. That same month,

Dennis Mullenberg goes on Fox Business to defend his jet. And the bottom line

here is the 737 MAX is safe.

At this point, it is suspected that there may be a safety issue with the

But Mullenberg points back to the pilots.

We've already issued a couple of bulletins to pilots and operators that

them back to existing flight procedures.

He looks confident, unconcerned, but apparently there is one thing that is of

concern, the price of Boeing's stock.

What they did do is they doubled down on getting the stock price up.

And, you know, that's totally egregious.

In December, two months after the crash, Boeing boosted stock dividend by 20 %

and authorizes a $20 billion program to buy back more shares in coming years.

They're sending a signal out to people who are buying their shares. And you can

be confident despite the fact we had a crash, everything's under control.

And that was in a sense saying we're not really worried about the fact that we

had a crash.

But all indications are that Boeing should be worried.

At the FAA, a new risk assessment shows that without a fix to MCAS, there could

be 15 more fatal 737 MAX crashes over the next 30 years.

But at the time, that report is not made public. And day after day around the

world, hundreds of people board a 737 MAX, trusting that the plane is safe.

The fact that their own analysis told them that there were likely to be lots

further accidents, that they did nothing, and they still did nothing?

I mean, I don't understand how these people go to bed at night.

I really don't.

Up next, Boeing sticks to its story.

We followed exactly the steps in our design and certification processes that

consistently produce safe airplanes.

For 25 years, on a 180 -acre farm in Sheffield, Massachusetts,

Nadia Milleran and Michael Stumo carve a peaceful life for themselves and three

children.

Over the years, their precocious daughter, Samya, is a constant source of

surprise. She teaches herself to read at age three.

At age 13, she makes a wild announcement.

I'm 13. I think I want to go to college.

And I said, oh, no, we're not going to college.

This is not going to happen. And then she comes back to us with financial aid,

and she comes back to us with this. And all of a sudden, turning age 14, she's

in college.

In 2019, Samia is 24, working for a nonprofit organization helping to bring

patient -centered health care to local communities in East Africa.

Her great -uncle is Ralph Nader.

He is certain she will one day become a leader in global health.

She was very conscious that public health had to be done at the grassroots,

to strengthen the villages. She had it all down.

In the early spring of 2019, Samia is heading from Washington to a work

in Nairobi.

She changes planes in Addis Ababa.

The Ethiopian Airlines flight takes off at 8 .38 a .m.

At first, there is nothing unusual about the trip.

But then, an all -too -familiar scenario comes into play.

That sensor on the nose of the plane is damaged.

Did a bird hit it? Did it just get damaged some other way?

We just don't know.

And so, the demon, MCAS, is unleashed.

So, boom.

comes the nose down, and it comes in for almost 10 seconds, and it comes in

fast, just like it did for Lion Air. So this hits them like a punch to the head.

But this time, the pilots know about the software. They switch off power to

MCAS, just as Boeing says to do.

Right, game on. We're going to save this airplane.

But they're going too fast.

Try as they might, the two pilots cannot pull the plane out of the dive.

So they take a step.

The aircraft is pointing down to the ground, and I'm sure it's their last

ever. The captain directs the first officer to put the switches back on.

The MCAS wakes up immediately and gives its last burst until it's almost almost

down.

Six minutes after takeoff.

The jet slammed into a farm field at 700 miles per hour.

I don't know how you can even explain your feeling at that time. Just pacing.

And my son, Tor, is just pacing back and forth. And what do you do? You can't

even think.

Samia's brother, Adnan, is in New Zealand at the time, holding out hope.

Until we knew what the death toll was, if there were any survivors, you've got

to think, well, even if there's one survivor, she's the survivor, you know.

That morning, Ralph Nader gets a call from a relative.

He said, was Sammy on that plane?

I said, no, no, no, it can't be.

But it is.

And there is just one word.

Devastating. All in the name of corporate profiteering.

It didn't have to happen. Those two crashes were eminently avoidable.

In all, 157 people have died.

One is Javier De Luis's sister, Graciela.

His younger sister calls him with the news.

But they don't have an identified body. And I'm like, no, they're not going to

be anybody.

Shortly after the 737 MAX goes down in Ethiopia...

The similarities between it and the Indonesian crash are clear.

The pilots are not the problem.

The jet is unsafe.

The 737 MAX is grounded around the world.

Across the country today, the minute 737 MAX flights landed, they face immediate

grounding. You know, it felt like it never faced anything like this before.

A certified jet being grounded and, well, 346 tragic deaths.

This is completely different from anything that Boeing had ever faced

In April, with his fastest -selling jet parked and billions of dollars at risk,

Dennis Mullenberg holds a press conference.

Once again, he insists Boeing has done nothing wrong.

We have gone back and confirmed again as we do the safety analysis, the

engineering analysis, that we followed exactly the steps in our design and

certification processes that consistently produce safe airplanes.

And the thing that's most infuriating to me and to the other families is that

there's this attitude of, we did nothing wrong, nothing to see here, everything,

system worked.

No, it did not.

Obviously it did not.

You have hundreds of bodies in Indonesia and Africa that tell you that them

didn't work. So stop telling me you all did your jobs right. You didn't.

Later, anger at Boeing's board.

The incompetence at that level of salary and bonus is

astounding. How can you be so stupid, much less callous?

Six months after the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, families come from

around the world to hold a memorial vigil in Washington.

Paul Jirogi lost his wife, three children, and mother -in -law.

I'm not able to go on with my life. I don't know how to live this life.

With their personal stories, the families are serving a warning.

As we remember our family members, I want to remind you all that you could

be in this position.

This happened to me because of the negligence within Boeing and within the

FAA.

At this point, Samya Stumo's parents are working overtime in her name, leading

the effort to bring about change.

And now we want no third crash.

They meet with every government official they can to insist that future

travelers be protected.

And you have to tell the story every time. It's a new trauma every time.

got to tell the story.

But important people are listening.

In the spring of 2019...

The House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure begins a series of

hearings as part of an enormous investigation into the 737 MAX.

I don't think we should be here today. I don't think 346 people should have

died, and I believe that this was preventable. It's by far the largest

investigation we ever undertook. In July, family members are called to

And we were very...

unhappy and worried that there was going to be a rush to unground this plane.

And others all around the world are watching.

My wife and I came to Washington after Samuel's death far earlier than we would

ever want to.

The hearings continue over a period of six months.

Finally, in October, Dennis Mullenberg sits down to answer some questions.

And, uh...

We are deeply, deeply sorry.

We'll never forget.

He points out that changes are underway.

MCAS will now rely on two sensors.

And I guess the question is, why wasn't it that way from day one?

Mr. Chairman, we've asked ourselves that same question over and over. And if

back then we knew everything that we know now, we would have made a different

decision.

Well, that's not true, because you did know, and people in your organization

knew.

And, you know, you just ignored it or covered it up.

Mullenberg is grilled for hours.

Eventually, he gets the question many people want to ask.

Your salary's still on. Is anybody at Boeing taking a cut or working for free

try to rectify this? Congressman, it's not about the money for me. That's not

why I came. Are you giving up any money?

Congressman.

My board will conduct a comprehensive review. So you're saying you're not

up any compensation at all. You're continuing to work and make $30 million

year after this horrific two accidents that caused all these people's relatives

to go, to disappear, to die.

You're not taking a cut in pay at all?

After the hearing, Mullenberg reportedly offers to take a cut in pay, but in

December, he's asked to resign.

He was put in place to not rock the boat. And all of a sudden, the boat got

rocked. And obviously, he was not the right person in the right place at the

right time.

Mullenberg leaves Boeing without a severance, but he takes with him close

million in salary, pension, and stock awards.

What kind of motivation to run companies properly is that? You can cause it to

lose. Billions of dollars, and then you get a huge benefit from that?

Up next, who gets the blame?

Test pilots don't run Boeing.

For two years.

Following the deadly crashes of the 737 MAX jets, family members of those who

died wait to see how Boeing will be held accountable.

For many, there is no question of who is responsible.

So it's all for commercial purposes.

Very, very clear.

The steps from Boeing's decisions at the top all the way to the Java Sea and

to the farmland in Ethiopia couldn't be clearer.

And evidence of Boeing's apparent negligence is expanding.

In a ruling from a lawsuit brought by shareholders, a Delaware judge finds

Boeing's board of directors did not establish a committee to oversee the

of the 737 MAX until after the second crash, after 346 people had died.

The board denies that and settles the case.

But victims' families find the judge's 103 -page ruling convincing.

The incompetence, the incompetence at that level of salary and

bonus is astounding. How can you be so stupid, much less callous?

But still, the big question is, will Boeing be criminally prosecuted?

The answer comes in January 2021.

The Department of Justice charges the company with fraud for deceiving the FAA

with misleading statements and half -truths about MCAS.

But there is a surprise.

The employees said to be responsible for Boeing's deception are two test pilots.

One is later individually indicted for fraud.

Boeing has essentially thrown two of its lowest level employees under the bus

and assigned all responsibility to them.

Test pilots don't run Boeing. Those test pilots did not come up with this on

their own. I mean, it started with the CEO. It started with the board.

It came all the way down the food chain.

But the Justice Department finds that the problems are not pervasive and not

facilitated by senior management.

Boeing settles with what is called a deferred prosecution agreement.

The case will likely be dismissed in three years.

Dennis Mullenberg and the Department of Justice did not respond to requests for

comment for this report.

For Boeing, it may be that the 737 MAX problems are over. Twenty months after

its grounding, the redesigned jet goes back into service.

With new flight control software and updated pilot procedures, the 737 MAX

been cleared to take off.

In all, the whole crisis cost Boeing an estimated $20 billion.

The company put to pause on stock buybacks.

Today, as people assess what went wrong with the 737 MAX, some believe the

answer goes back to the late 1990s.

to those days when engineers stopped being the center of Boeing's universe.

The cultural explanation for what happened is probably the best. The

difference between doing MCAS wrong and doing it right is nonexistent.

The only thing that makes any sense is that there was a deliberate

disempowerment of engineers and a culture that basically ignored their

In a statement to American Greed, Boeing says that it has made significant

changes as a company and to the design of the 737 MAX to ensure

that accidents like those in Indonesia and Africa never happen again.

But those who are looking for signs of a deep change in Boeing's corporate

culture are disappointed in what they see so far.

I had hoped that this would...

be a major reckoning.

They would bring in someone new, and they would say, no, we're going to go

to being what we were, the best aerospace engineering company in the

we're not going to watch the daily stock price.

But that didn't happen. At this time, Boeing is putting its two deadly

behind.

But for the families of those who were killed in Boeing's jets, that option is

not available.

Our whole life is totally different, like every single moment of our life. I,

you know, just have trouble getting regular life done.

I have a long way to go, I think.

And I definitely don't want this for any other family or any other mother.