While an unfortunate topic, this article is a breath of fresh air at the Free Press. In-depth, focused, unbiased and genuinely focused on a meaningful issue that should concern most people. Excellent stuff.
Great article. One aspect missing in talking about the culture at Boeing is the revolving door of executives between the FAA and the Boeing board. This same issue prevails between the FDA and boards of some major pharmaceutical companies. If it is indeed time to start rebuilding trust between government and the American people, this is a critical place to start.
John Barnett tried to warn us. All honor to his name and dishonor to Boeing. Appreciate your coverage of a story that MSM is ignoring. Perhaps TFP and Joe should investigate his death - if you do so please state that you are in good health with no suicidal thoughts.
The move to Chicago, organized crime, is reminiscent of the teamsters union & Jimmy Hoffa. It makes for a good movie. Just throw in some DEI & super hero’s in weird outfits. I think Pete Buttigieg should investigate since he’s done such a stellar job.
David Halberstam wrote a fine book "The Reckoning" on how the corporate profit mentality ruined America's quality edge in automobile production. He detailed the policy of putting "bottom lines" and shareholder profits over quality design and engineering. That occurred in the late fifties and sixties, and here we are again. Maybe his book should be mandatory reading for corporation executives.
I said it before, I will say it again - American business sucks. You know it. I know it. They make crap products, provide crap customer service and stand behind nothing. They are run by greedy apparatchiks who don't care about their products, employees or customers. Why? Nocera said it best. What they care about is the stock value which makes the top executives very rich because so much of their compensation is paid in stock options. And why do they get to and stay in power? Because they are in the pockets of people such as Larry the Fink who reward them and keep them in power. We have truly lost our way and our corporate class of greedy, inept cowards needs to be replaced en masse. And, until they are, taxed to the max to reduce their power. The companies that truly prosper are those who reward their loyal employees and care about customers. In acts not words.
Boeing is another story of "Too Big to Fail", and the corporate culture expects that the government will bail them out. and it will. Strictly from a national security standpoint, there are only a couple of aircraft manufacturers left in the US capable of building the fighters and bombers needed to stay competitive with our adversaries, really only Boeing and Lockheed.
Just before Covid I was making several cross country trips to help several of my children with grandmother babysitting. I found myself using several airlines and several styles of planes. I hadn’t been paying attention to the actual plane until one trip the flight was in an Airbus. My first time. I actually wrote an email to my husband (an engineer who at one point helped build airplanes) and my children the following: “ I am very disturbed. The Airbus I just flew on is a significantly better airplane. Better design. Better comfort. It just “feels” more solid. It makes me sad because I want MY AMERICAN plane to be the world’s best and it’s clear we no longer do”. Now I’m no “America first crazy” but even an occasional flyer if they are honest and aware would be able to tell the difference in the planes from Airbus and Boeing simply on simple measures. I am
Deeply saddened that it has taken deaths to have Boeing face their crisis. Let’s hope they properly clean house and get
Let’s not conflate United 777 losing a wheel on takeoff with Boeing quality control issues. That plane wasn’t new. Any issues there belong solely to United and its maintenance practices. First thing I thought is they properly secure the wheel assembly and/or lug nuts after changing a tire … NTSB should be able to tell that one pretty quickly.
I'm sorry, but I still don't know what John Barnett was saying. I mean specifically. I get the part about a culture of poor quality, but what specifically was wrong with the planes when he was working at Boeing? The Wikipedia article on him gets into more detail with his allegations, but really only presents his side. Boeing is given short shrift in responding.
For example, did Mr. Barnett expose the problems with the 737 Max that (indirectly) caused the two fatal crashes? My understanding was that they were related to the software-designed response to redundancy failures, not to hardware. I also read that American crews, when confronted with similar failures in the 737 Max, were able to overcome the problems and continue the flight. Their response to events was better.
One of the main problems with evaluating claims like these is that airplanes are so safe these days that accidents almost never happen. With very low probability events, it's impossible to draw statistical conclusions about safety without decades of experience: years are not enough. And statistically, Boeing airplanes remain very, very safe.
The fact that Barnett's death isn't being investigated suggests that nothing is really changing, and also reinforces the idea that this isn't just a Boeing problem, that the govt is deeply involved as well. The FAA happily approved of all of this, and the govt is clearly helping to circle the wagons here.
I've worked directly with Boeing as a supplier for over 30 years and it's been heartbreaking to watch this company being run down by C-Suite, Wall Street shills. Unfortunately rolling a few heads at the top will not magically change this company back to what it was in 1990, it will take a generation of new leadership to imbue the rank and file with the correct direction.
I’m no big fan of Boeing, but if half of this stuff were true, the airplanes will be falling out of the skies every day. They obviously need to get their act together, but this reads like one of the old hit pieces on GM. Not that I like GM either.
“I haven’t seen a plane out of Charleston yet that I’d put my name on saying it’s safe and airworthy,” he told The New York Times in 2019. Really? Not one aircraft was good enough? Obviously an engineer mentality. But Mr Nocera KNOWS everything he said was true! He knows it, man!
Also, the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia were software related, not hardware. Even so, the final report on the Ethiopian crash stated “Appropriate crew management of the event, per the procedures that existed at the time, would have allowed the crew to recover the airplane even when faced with the uncommanded nose-down inputs.”
Sadly, these deaths may have been preventable, but were not related to the physical build out of the airplane. So, let’s investigate what John Barnett said, but not take it as Gospel.
Good post. Boeing moved from being run by engineers to marketing, CFO types based on financials rather than manufacturing and quality. Much like the rest of the West.
God speed to Mr. Barnett's family and loved ones. Boeing moved from fact based to woke-based and based on this I would seriously question whether Barnett was suicided; when you are woke-based you do not operate on truth, therefore you are subject to politics which can be enforced in certain ways.
Boeing has been a dumpster fire for awhile now. I believe they have had a negative net income for the last five years.
But the idea that Boeing had the guy whacked is absurd. Secret underworld assassins that will carry out a hit on the orders of a corporate CEO and make it look like a suicide. Do not exist and would be the thinking of a person with an over active imagination.
Its far more likely the guy committed suicide deliberately making cryptic comments beforehand to go out in a blaze of glory. Now he won’t be forgotten. They’ll be in Netflix special in ten years made by a conspiracy theorist who has been obsessing over him.
Much in the same way a mass shooter wants to go out in infamy. Except this guy wasn’t a psychopath, he was a decent human being, and only hurt himself.
While an unfortunate topic, this article is a breath of fresh air at the Free Press. In-depth, focused, unbiased and genuinely focused on a meaningful issue that should concern most people. Excellent stuff.
Great article. One aspect missing in talking about the culture at Boeing is the revolving door of executives between the FAA and the Boeing board. This same issue prevails between the FDA and boards of some major pharmaceutical companies. If it is indeed time to start rebuilding trust between government and the American people, this is a critical place to start.
John Barnett tried to warn us. All honor to his name and dishonor to Boeing. Appreciate your coverage of a story that MSM is ignoring. Perhaps TFP and Joe should investigate his death - if you do so please state that you are in good health with no suicidal thoughts.
This was well written. Shows what happens when standards go out the door, for whatever reason. Boeing is a metaphor for the U.S.
The move to Chicago, organized crime, is reminiscent of the teamsters union & Jimmy Hoffa. It makes for a good movie. Just throw in some DEI & super hero’s in weird outfits. I think Pete Buttigieg should investigate since he’s done such a stellar job.
David Halberstam wrote a fine book "The Reckoning" on how the corporate profit mentality ruined America's quality edge in automobile production. He detailed the policy of putting "bottom lines" and shareholder profits over quality design and engineering. That occurred in the late fifties and sixties, and here we are again. Maybe his book should be mandatory reading for corporation executives.
I said it before, I will say it again - American business sucks. You know it. I know it. They make crap products, provide crap customer service and stand behind nothing. They are run by greedy apparatchiks who don't care about their products, employees or customers. Why? Nocera said it best. What they care about is the stock value which makes the top executives very rich because so much of their compensation is paid in stock options. And why do they get to and stay in power? Because they are in the pockets of people such as Larry the Fink who reward them and keep them in power. We have truly lost our way and our corporate class of greedy, inept cowards needs to be replaced en masse. And, until they are, taxed to the max to reduce their power. The companies that truly prosper are those who reward their loyal employees and care about customers. In acts not words.
Boeing is another story of "Too Big to Fail", and the corporate culture expects that the government will bail them out. and it will. Strictly from a national security standpoint, there are only a couple of aircraft manufacturers left in the US capable of building the fighters and bombers needed to stay competitive with our adversaries, really only Boeing and Lockheed.
Just before Covid I was making several cross country trips to help several of my children with grandmother babysitting. I found myself using several airlines and several styles of planes. I hadn’t been paying attention to the actual plane until one trip the flight was in an Airbus. My first time. I actually wrote an email to my husband (an engineer who at one point helped build airplanes) and my children the following: “ I am very disturbed. The Airbus I just flew on is a significantly better airplane. Better design. Better comfort. It just “feels” more solid. It makes me sad because I want MY AMERICAN plane to be the world’s best and it’s clear we no longer do”. Now I’m no “America first crazy” but even an occasional flyer if they are honest and aware would be able to tell the difference in the planes from Airbus and Boeing simply on simple measures. I am
Deeply saddened that it has taken deaths to have Boeing face their crisis. Let’s hope they properly clean house and get
Back to a solid engineer-aviation culture
Let’s not conflate United 777 losing a wheel on takeoff with Boeing quality control issues. That plane wasn’t new. Any issues there belong solely to United and its maintenance practices. First thing I thought is they properly secure the wheel assembly and/or lug nuts after changing a tire … NTSB should be able to tell that one pretty quickly.
I'm sorry, but I still don't know what John Barnett was saying. I mean specifically. I get the part about a culture of poor quality, but what specifically was wrong with the planes when he was working at Boeing? The Wikipedia article on him gets into more detail with his allegations, but really only presents his side. Boeing is given short shrift in responding.
For example, did Mr. Barnett expose the problems with the 737 Max that (indirectly) caused the two fatal crashes? My understanding was that they were related to the software-designed response to redundancy failures, not to hardware. I also read that American crews, when confronted with similar failures in the 737 Max, were able to overcome the problems and continue the flight. Their response to events was better.
One of the main problems with evaluating claims like these is that airplanes are so safe these days that accidents almost never happen. With very low probability events, it's impossible to draw statistical conclusions about safety without decades of experience: years are not enough. And statistically, Boeing airplanes remain very, very safe.
The fact that Barnett's death isn't being investigated suggests that nothing is really changing, and also reinforces the idea that this isn't just a Boeing problem, that the govt is deeply involved as well. The FAA happily approved of all of this, and the govt is clearly helping to circle the wagons here.
I've worked directly with Boeing as a supplier for over 30 years and it's been heartbreaking to watch this company being run down by C-Suite, Wall Street shills. Unfortunately rolling a few heads at the top will not magically change this company back to what it was in 1990, it will take a generation of new leadership to imbue the rank and file with the correct direction.
I’m no big fan of Boeing, but if half of this stuff were true, the airplanes will be falling out of the skies every day. They obviously need to get their act together, but this reads like one of the old hit pieces on GM. Not that I like GM either.
“I haven’t seen a plane out of Charleston yet that I’d put my name on saying it’s safe and airworthy,” he told The New York Times in 2019. Really? Not one aircraft was good enough? Obviously an engineer mentality. But Mr Nocera KNOWS everything he said was true! He knows it, man!
Also, the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia were software related, not hardware. Even so, the final report on the Ethiopian crash stated “Appropriate crew management of the event, per the procedures that existed at the time, would have allowed the crew to recover the airplane even when faced with the uncommanded nose-down inputs.”
Sadly, these deaths may have been preventable, but were not related to the physical build out of the airplane. So, let’s investigate what John Barnett said, but not take it as Gospel.
Good post. Boeing moved from being run by engineers to marketing, CFO types based on financials rather than manufacturing and quality. Much like the rest of the West.
God speed to Mr. Barnett's family and loved ones. Boeing moved from fact based to woke-based and based on this I would seriously question whether Barnett was suicided; when you are woke-based you do not operate on truth, therefore you are subject to politics which can be enforced in certain ways.
https://im1776.com/2024/03/18/boeing-decline/
Boeing has been a dumpster fire for awhile now. I believe they have had a negative net income for the last five years.
But the idea that Boeing had the guy whacked is absurd. Secret underworld assassins that will carry out a hit on the orders of a corporate CEO and make it look like a suicide. Do not exist and would be the thinking of a person with an over active imagination.
Its far more likely the guy committed suicide deliberately making cryptic comments beforehand to go out in a blaze of glory. Now he won’t be forgotten. They’ll be in Netflix special in ten years made by a conspiracy theorist who has been obsessing over him.
Much in the same way a mass shooter wants to go out in infamy. Except this guy wasn’t a psychopath, he was a decent human being, and only hurt himself.