Air travel is fabulously safe, as thousands of flights take off and land without incident every day. But on January 5, 2024, when Boeing’s two-month-old 737 MAX 9 narrowly escaped disaster after a mid-cabin door plug blew out, causing explosive depressurization of the aircraft cabin on Alaska Airlines flight 1282, this was sadly not unexpected, given the story of the 737 MAX.
I have been investigating the Boeing 737 MAX ever since my friend’s granddaughter was in seat 16J on Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 on March 10, 2019 when it crashed, killing all 157 passengers and crew on board. Shortly thereafter, in a conversation with the victim’s great uncle, Ralph Nader, I became aware of the contributions of the corporate malfeasance of Boeing and the regulatory capture of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to the 737 MAX crashes, and I have been investigating the Boeing 737 MAX ever since. Since Fall 2019, I have been teaching the course “Boeing 737 MAX: Money, Machines, and Morals in Conflict” at the University of California, Berkeley.
