Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing

Product Description

From the award-winning reporter for Bloomberg, a suspenseful behind-the-scenes look at the dysfunction that contributed to one of the worst tragedies in modern aviation: the 2018 and 2019 crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX.

Boeing is a century-old titan of industry. It played a major role in the early days of commercial flight, World War II bombing missions, and moon landings. The planemaker remains a cornerstone of the U.S. economy, as well as a linchpin in the awesome routine of modern air travel. But in 2018 and 2019, two crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 killed 346 people. The crashes exposed a shocking pattern of malfeasance, leading to the biggest crisis in the company’s history—and one of the costliest corporate scandals ever. 
 
How did things go so horribly wrong at Boeing?
 

Flying Blind is the definitive exposé of the disasters that transfixed the world. Drawing from exclusive interviews with current and former employees of Boeing and the FAA; industry executives and analysts; and family members of the victims, it reveals how a broken corporate culture paved the way for catastrophe. It shows how in the race to beat the competition and reward top executives, Boeing skimped on testing, pressured employees to meet unrealistic deadlines, and convinced regulators to put planes into service without properly equipping them or their pilots for flight. It examines how the company, once a treasured American innovator, became obsessed with the bottom line, putting shareholders over customers, employees, and communities.
 
By Bloomberg investigative journalist Peter Robison, who covered Boeing as a beat reporter during the company’s fateful merger with McDonnell Douglas in the late ‘90s, this is the story of a business gone wildly off course. At once riveting and disturbing, it shows how an iconic company fell prey to a win-at-all-costs mentality, threatening an industry and endangering countless lives.

Review

*An NPR “Books We Love” Selection of 2021

“Vividly written and meticulously researched,
Flying Blind is a story everyone—every consumer, every citizen, every worker in every industry—needs to read. Peter Robison brilliantly places Boeing’s deadly downfall within the larger tragedy of an American business culture that gradually has smashed every altar but the one where the bottom line is worshipped.”
—
Diana B. Henriques,
New York Times bestselling author of
The Wizard of Lies and
A First-Class Catastrophe
“A disturbing account that will return much-deserved scrutiny both to Boeing and to its regulator.”
—
Wall Street Journal

“Flying Blind is superb reporting in service of a riveting story. Robison has crafted this tour de force masterfully, showing how modern capitalism’s abandonment of quality in favor of quick bucks literally knocked airplanes out of the sky. As you turn each page in growing disbelief and anger, I guarantee it will keep you reading late into the night.”
—
Kurt Eichenwald,
New York Times bestselling author of
Conspiracy of Fools and
The Informant

“The long train of events that led to the tragedies—and the subsequent reputational and financial trashing of one of America’s biggest companies—is expertly dissected in
Flying Blind…. A ‘bottom-line mindset’ prevailed. In rich detail, Mr Robison chronicles the shortcomings of that approach at a firm where safety should be paramount.”

—The Economist

“Peter Robison’s compelling and richly reported
Flying Blind is about so much more than the sad decline of Boeing and the tragic mistakes that led to the 737 Max disaster. It’s also the urgent story of how the almighty profit motive supplanted a culture of engineering excellence in boardrooms across America and the avoidable calamity that has impacted all of us as a result.”
—
Brad Stone,
New York Times bestselling author of
Amazon Unbound and
The Everything Store

“Peter Robison’s
Flying Blind is the astoundingly well reported and beautifully told story of the downfall of what was on