There is a notion that Boeing is (was) a company with an insanely great engineering culture. Their engineers lived in an idyllic culture of building amazing products while always putting public safety first. This great culture suffered under the merger with McDonnell Douglas [1], [2], [3]. This narrative further says that McDonnell had a mercenary profits at all cost management culture which infected the management of the combined entity. However Boeing's engineers tried to preserve their engineering ethos while living under this oppressive regime and continued building great and safe products.
This argument is frequently put forth by ex-Boeing engineers. This is a naked apologia for Boeing's behavior which killed 346 people and endangered the lives of 1000s more and destroyed jobs/wealth around the world.
So strong is the apologists conviction in the purity of Boeing's engineering culture that they ignore the fact that thousands of engineers worked on the 737 Max. Not a single engineer raised issues with the engineering of the aircraft. Not a single engineer wrote a blistering memo calling out its failing or quit in protest. They were all held in thrall, paralyzed and forced to go against their ethics, professionalism, decency by the power of this unholy culture forced upon them by McDonnell Douglas!
Eventually, all stellar organizations, public or private, become complacent (e.g. Israeli Intelligence Failure, 1973, NASA by the 1980s). Boeing made an unstable plane which it then stablized with a dangerous MCAS to get it to market fast. They then topped it off by making the MCAS rely on a single sensor. They then made the dual-sensor an upgrade. An undergraduate engineering student with a basic course on probability can see that this is tailor-made for disaster. Boeing made an essential safety feature an upgrade!! But wait there is more. They then proceeded to hide this monstrosity from every regulator and airline on the planet. They insisted that the plane was no different in every aspect of its flight behavior than its predecessor which was over 30 years old and did not require additional safety training.
Boeing had become so criminally blatant that the head of airline training at Lion Air inquired about extra training for the 737 Max and Boeing's test engineers rebuffed him. After the Lion Air crash, Boeing proceeded to cast aspersion on the safety practices of Lion Air. Lion Air had a spotty safety record in the past. In this case it was Boeing that rebuffed their requests for additional training because it would set a precedent for other airlines in SE Asia. When that lack of training became a factor in the crash during the investigation, Boeing proceeded to blame Lion Air. Chutzpah!
Transcripts of messages released during the investigation show how Boeing employees worked in unison to ensure no extra simulator training was required. Folks, this is not a great engineering culture obsessed with safety but rather an organization trying to get away with as much as it can and then indulging in a coverup.
We need to start accepting that whatever stellar engineering culture existed at Boeing is dead. We as a society need to stop scapegoating imaginary forces in the past and giving Boeing engineers a pass.
Strong regulation is necessary to ensure the safety of Boeing Products.
[1] https://qz.com/1776080/how-the-mcdonnell-douglas-boeing-merg...
[2] https://fortune.com/longform/boeing-737-max-crisis-sharehold...