Flying Blind

Boeing, a company more than a century old, has long been one of America's industrial giants. As the country's largest exporter, it shaped the early days of commercial flight, flew bombing missions during World War II, and contributed to the moon landings. It still sits at the center of everyday air travel. Yet two crashes involving its 737 MAX 8, in 2018 and 2019, revealed a troubling pattern of misconduct and set off the gravest crisis in the company's history. How did a firm of that stature end up in such trouble? In Flying Blind, Peter Robison offers a quick-moving investigation into the corporate failings behind one of the most devastating tragedies in modern aviation, including relentless cost-cutting, hostile workplaces, and cutthroat management. Presented as the definitive account of a scandal that captured global attention, the book argues that a broken corporate culture set the stage for disaster and that the resulting losses were avoidable. Robison draws on aviation insiders and on exclusive interviews with senior Boeing staff, both past and present. The book traces how the rivalry with Airbus pushed Boeing to cut corners on testing, hand critical software work to unreliable outside contractors, and persuade regulators to approve planes for service without adequately preparing pilots to fly them. Beyond the single company, it serves as a warning about a corporate America that puts shareholders ahead of customers, employees, and the communities it touches. The result is a harsh chronicle of how a once-iconic company gave itself over to a win-at-all-costs mindset, unsettled an entire industry, and was responsible for the deaths of 350 people in incidents the author considers unnecessary.