How ‘Boeing’s fatal flaw’ grounded the 737 Max and exposed failed versight

Airplanes are designed to go up after takeoff, but that’s not what happened to Lion Air Flight 610 when it left Jakarta, Indonesia, in October 2018. “You don’t see planes diving on departure,” one Indonesian aviation expert said. And yet the Boeing 737 Max jet, piloted by an experienced crew, went into an irrecoverable nosedive minutes after takeoff. All 189 people on board were killed when it crashed into the Java Sea. Four months later, 157 people died when another 737 Max, operated as Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, plummeted to the earth, ringing new alarms about the aircraft. Days later, the jet was grounded. “Boeing’s Fatal Flaw,” a new documentary by Frontline, featuring reporting by The New York Times, investigates the causes of the two crashes and how a software system that was supposed to make the plane safer played a role in the catastrophes. The Boeing 737 Max began as a success story: The plane was the company’s best selling jet ever, with hundreds of billions of dollars in advance orders from airlines around the world. But a NYT investigation shows that, early on, the tale had all the elements of a tragedy in the making. Story has link to documentary and more background.<br/>