Boeing 737 MAX: A flawed flight-control system
TL;DR
MCAS system design and single-sensor reliance failures.
Speed Read
0%
300 WPM
-- remaining
Pulitzer Prize-winning investigation documenting how MCAS eliminated redundancy that existed (two sensors) by design choice (reading only one), while path dependence locked Boeing into a flawed architecture that killed 346 people.
Key Findings from Gates (2019)
- MCAS used only one of the 737's two angle-of-attack sensors—Boeing could have compared both
- System authority increased 4x during development (0.6° to 2.5°) while single-sensor design remained
- Boeing removed MCAS from pilot manuals on the same day the system was expanded
- 346 deaths in Lion Air 610 (Oct 2018) and Ethiopian 302 (Mar 2019) crashes
- 20-month grounding—longest for any U.S. airliner in history
- Boeing costs exceeded $20B direct, $60B+ indirect from 1,200 cancelled orders
- 2024: Boeing agreed to plead guilty to felony fraud, pay $487.2M fine (plea later rejected)