Boeing reeled from ‘terrible’ press after first Max crash

Boeing leaders were stunned by a barrage of negative articles after a 737 Max plunged into the Java Sea in October 2018, killing all aboard, according to internal communications. The messages, unveiled Thursday under court order, show that executives and board directors worried about media coverage and indications that pilots on the Lion Air flight were caught unaware by an obscure flight-control system in the Max but not earlier 737 models. Lingering production snarls and the 737’s importance as Boeing’s biggest source of sales added to the tension. “Press is terrible. Very tough. Lots of negative chatter I’m picking up. Not pleasant,” Ken Duberstein, at the time a veteran Boeing director, said in a Nov. 14 missive to then-CEO Dennis Muilenburg. Duberstein recommended that the company “address more aggressively” the emerging concerns about the Max, deliveries and Lion Air. Boeing’s board didn’t moved to gain greater oversight of quality and safety until a second Max crashed in Ethiopia in March 2019, according to a complaint filed by the New York State Common Retirement Fund and the Fire and Police Pension Association of Colorado. The second disaster, which brought the death toll from the two accidents to 346, spurred a global grounding that plunged Boeing into one of the deepest crises in its century-long history. The inaction amounts to an “epochal corporate governance catastrophe,” the New York and Colorado funds said in an amended Delaware Chancery Court complaint that was made public Feb. 5. Story has more. <br/>