Introduction:

Two Boeing 737 MAX 8 have fallen out the air and crashed in the first six months of there service. This has never happened to any other aircrafts that we’re brand new and we’re just released. On the surface, this is a technical failure. But the real story is about a company’s desire to beat their rival.

On March 10, 2019 Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed in a field in Bishoftu, Ethiopia. 157 people died. This was also a few months after another flight crashed in Indonesia, Lion Air 610 and killed 189 people. They both we’re operating the same plane: The Boeing 737 MAX 8. And its engine is the key to understanding why this plane caused so much trouble.

So why?

The two biggest aircraft manufacturers in the world are Airbus and Boeing. If one of them offers a better aircraft the other loses a lot of money. This is what was about to happen in 2010. Airbus announced that they would update their most popular model, the A320, a single-aisle aircraft that services many domestic flights. For this new plane, Airbus had a big update. It would have a new kind of engine. It was a engine that was larger then the previous one but it would make the plane 15 percent more fuel efficient. Just as importantly, this wouldn’t change the plane that much. A pilot could walk into the new model, with little additional training, and be on their way. It was called the A320 NEO.

This was a problem for Boeing. To compete with Airbus, Boeing’s obvious move was to upgrade the engine on their singe-aisle plane, the 737. Here is a sketch of them both.

From the picture we can see that the 737 (aircraft on the right) is lower to the ground than the A320 (aircraft on the left). This meant Airbus could add a new engine under the A320. But there wasn’t enough room under the Boeing 737. A few months later, Boeing announced that they found a way to get a big enough engine under the plane. The solution was to move up the engine on the wing, so that it would be slightly higher and it would fit on the 737s.

You can actually see that the top of the engine is above the wing. Boeing called this model the Boeing 737 MAX. Just like Airbus with the A320, Boeing said their new plane was so similar to its predecessor that pilots would need only a minimal amount of additional training. The 737 MAX was the best selling plane on the market. And it helped Boeing to keep up with Airbus. Except, moving the engine up had a side effect. When the 737 MAX was in full thrust, like takeoff, the nose tended to point too far upward, which could lead to a stall. This was a problem since these planes we’re supposed to behave exactly like the old ones. So Boeing came up with a solution.

Instead of re-engineering the plane, they added a software that automatically pushed the nose downward if the pilot flew the plane at too high of an angle. They called it the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). But because Boeing was selling the 737 MAX as pretty much the same as the 737, they didn’t highlight the new MCAS system. Pilots only got a two-hour iPad course before entering the cockpit for the first time. And the training material did not mention the MCAS software. In 2018, several American pilots complained to the federal government that the 737 MAX was suddenly nosing down.

After the crashes, nearly every 737 MAX 8 in service has been grounded. And the Federal Aviation Administration is facing scrutiny over how they rushed this plane through certification. Boeing’s response has been to apply a software update and make the MCAS “less aggressive,” while also saying they’ll increase pilot training on how to turn it off. Now the 737 MAX 8 is slowly being ungrounded after many tests and other evaluation.