Boeing Knew About Safety-Alert Problem for a Year Before Telling FAA, Airlines

PHOTO: Lindsey Wasson

After the October crash of a 737 MAX jet in Indonesia, Boeing Co. gave many airlines and pilots partial and inconsistent explanations. After the fatal crash, it became clear that Boeing Co. did not share information regarding personal airline problems and cockpit safety. Although the airline company has had fatal plane crashes in the past, they remained silent for years.

Five months after a second MAX accident in Ethiopia, officials say that Boeing finally became more forthcoming with airlines about their problem. Although Boeing was experiencing many airline problems, they did not publicly disclose the software error behind the problem for six weeks.

On Sunday, Boeing said company engineers in 2017 identified that alerts were not operating as intended because of a software error. Boeing told different airlines months apart that their cockpits did not work on most of the global MAX fleet as originally designed. Boeing said it realized the alerts were not operating several months after the first deliveries of the model, yet they allowed passengers to continuously board the plane.

I chose this article because of a recent blog marketing article I did regarding two Boeing plane crashes. This article is related to marketing because of the C in Company. Boeing Co. knew that they had software issues, issues that put their planes in jeopardy, but instead of publicly speaking on the issue, they remained quiet and continued to send passengers on their planes. By staying quiet about their software issues, Boeing affected the name and reputation of their company by staying quiet about their safety issues. Since this issue has finally come to light, many individuals will begin to use other airline competitors.

LINK:  https://www.wsj.com/articles/boeing-knew-about-safety-alert-problem-for-a-year-before-telling-faa-airlines-11557087129?mod=hp_lead_pos3