Boeing | Point of Failure | 3

American Scandal

Wondery

True Crime, Exhibit C, Society & Culture, History, Documentary, History Daily, American History Tellers, Lindsay Graham

4.6 • 18.7K Ratings

🗓️ 27 August 2024

⏱️ 44 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

In 2012, Boeing engineers and test pilots are under pressure to deliver a redesigned 737 quickly, to compete with a similar plane from their rival, Airbus. The 737 MAX has bigger, more fuel efficient engines, but it’s also prone to stalling. A complete redesign is out of the question, so engineers settle on installing a piece of software instead, called MCAS, which can automatically push down the plane’s nose and prevent a stall. But to avoid costly additional training, Boeing opts not to tell pilots about the new software – with disastrous results.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Wundry Plus subscribers can binge new seasons of American scandal early and ad free right now.
0:05.7	Join Wundry Plus in the Wundery app or on Apple Podcasts. Wondering. It's 2012, six years before the Lion Air crash involving a Boeing 737 Max8 aircraft.
0:31.4	And at Boeing's Research and Development center in Seattle, Ray Craig is about to step into a flight simulator.
0:37.0	Craig is the chief test pilot for Boeing's new plane, and it's his job to make sure it will hold up in every scenario a pilot might find
0:44.7	themselves in.
0:45.7	Today he needs to investigate a problem engineers discovered when testing a scale model
0:50.7	of the Max-8 in a wind tunnel.
0:53.0	The engineers found that when executing a tight high-speed turn, the plane tended to pitch
0:58.0	sharply upwards and stall, which could result in a crash.
1:02.1	So Craig has come to find out if the same thing happens in the simulator.
1:05.8	Craig steps inside and sits down at the captain's chair.
1:09.0	The seat and controls are nearly identical to what the actual cockpit of a 737 Max 8 will look like,
1:15.2	but the windshield in front of him is a digital projection,
1:18.4	and cinema quality speakers mimic what he'd hear inside a real plane.
1:23.0	Seated inside the simulator, Craig fires up the controls, releases the parking brake,
1:28.0	and then launches the plane down the runway.
1:31.0	Once he's airborne, he throws the plane into a sharp turn and sure enough he feels the nose start to pull upwards.
1:37.0	Craig tries to force it back down, but as alarms Blair he loses control and the plane stalls.
1:44.0	As the simulation winds down, an engineer pops his head into the simulated cockpit.
1:52.6	See what I mean, Craig?
1:54.0	Well, you were right.
1:55.6	Got the same result.
	...

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