Ashley Nunes is a senior research associate at Harvard Law School and an economics lecturer at Harvard University.
Airplane maker Boeing is drawing the ire of federal safety investigators. Again.
Just over a week ago, one of its jets – a 737 Max 9 operated by Alaska Airlines – was forced to land unexpectedly after one of its cabin panels blew off in flight. Seeing a gaping hole at 16,000 feet, some of the 171 passengers onboard screamed, some cried, and a few drafted final text messages to loved ones on the ground, all while oxygen masks dropped from the ceiling. The near-vacuum created by the hole forced open the normally locked cockpit door. One passenger described the 20-minute flight as a “trip from hell.”
The fallout has been swift. Following the incident, the Federal Aviation Administration – America’s air safety regulator – ordered the grounding and inspection of these Max 9 jets. The FAA has since gone further, promising to see whether Boeing and its suppliers followed approved quality-control practices in this incident. Although Boeing has been quick to apologize – the company’s boss said the incident was “our mistake” – the FAA is in no mood to grant a reprieve. Neither are U.S. lawmakers, who are calling for Congressional hearings. “Is it shoddy material? Is it shoddy work? Is it not enough inspections?” asked U.S. Senator Shelley Moore Capito.
Outrage over this incident reflects Boeing’s beleaguered history with the Max line. In 2018, a Max 8, operated by Lion Air, crashed off the coast of Indonesia; all 189 passengers and crew were killed. Five months later, another Max 8 – this one owned by Ethiopian Airlines – suffered the same fate. The jet had left Addis Ababa for what should have been a two-hour flight to Nairobi. Instead, it lasted just six minutes. Its wreckage was later found strewn across a field and all 157 passengers and crew were killed.
However, while those accidents were blamed on software flaws, this recent incident appears to be the result of improper construction. Safety investigators suspect that metal bolts that were designed to hold the cabin intact were either never installed to begin with or installed improperly (other Max operators have found “loose hardware” on their jets). “We don’t know if [the bolts] were there or if, again, they came out during the violent explosive decompression event,” noted National Transportation Safety Board chair Jennifer Homendy.
Airplanes like the Max are marvels of modern engineering. They can fly farther, faster and carry more passengers than their predecessors, all at a fraction of the cost. That matters to an industry that has historically been a loss-making enterprise. However, every form and function added to an airplane adds complexity. More engines mean more power, but it also means more weight, which slows an airplane down. A larger cabin, like the Max has, allows an airplane to carry more passengers. But assembling that cabin requires more technicians, which increases the risk of human error.
These risks have grown over time as airplanes have evolved. The Boeing 727, which first rolled off the assembly line in 1962, included more than 100,000 individual parts. Its wide-bodied successor, the Boeing 777, which has been flying since 1995, has more than 3 million parts. That’s more than 3 million opportunities for something to go wrong during assembly alone. These opportunities increase further when the jet enters service. The economic pressures of commercial aviation dictate that airplane technicians, cabin crew and ramp workers toil around the clock in bad weather and fatiguing conditions to keep airplanes flying.
This reality makes me wonder whether the outrage directed at Boeing is entirely warranted. (As I write this, I’m actually flying on a different type of Max on my way to Madrid, without feeling any concern.) In the push to give the public what it wants – jets that are fast, comfortable and most importantly, cheap to fly – the company has made design decisions that entail tradeoffs. Instead of faulting Boeing – or any airplane developer, for that matter – for this approach, what we need is more transparency from these companies so the public can better understand how and why design decisions are made and what the associated risks to the public are. Then we can decide whether those risks outweigh the reward.
Some may argue that safety is number one and should never be compromised. When design flaws are the culprit, conventional wisdom suggests we should blame the designer. The truth, however, is more complicated. But as I’ve long argued, improving an airplane’s design will not make it perfectly safe. If perfect safety is what you are looking for, you would do well, as aviation pioneer Wilbur Wright once advised, to “sit on a fence and watch the birds.”
Editor’s note: A previous version of this story said Max 9's safety problem was a result of maintenance, rather than construction.