Produced by Tiger Sniff ESG Group
Author: Chen Yuli
Header image: Visual China
This article is the 083rd article in the #ESG Progress Watch# series
Just over the halfway point of May, Boeing has had five accidents.
Although the frequent occurrence of Boeing aircraft safety accidents is nothing new, the frequency of accidents in an average of three days has refreshed people's cognition.
The most recent accident was in the past two days, according to Singapore's "Lianhe Zaobao" on May 16, a Boeing 747 passenger plane of Indonesia's Eagle Airlines that took off from Indonesia and carried 468 passengers and crew returned to the airport for an emergency landing due to an engine fire shortly after takeoff, fortunately no one was injured.
Image source X丨@fl360aero
Looking back at the Boeing accident in the past half month, not only civil aircraft, but also cargo planes:
On May 8, a FedEx Boeing 767 cargo plane staged a thrilling scene at Istanbul Fort International Airport on the same day, the front landing gear of the plane landed without opening, and the head of the plane rubbed on the runway to produce sparks, but fortunately there were no casualties.
In the early hours of May 9, a Senegalese Airlines Boeing 737-300 overran off the runway while taking off from the airport in Dakar and was severely damaged. As a result of the accident, 11 people were injured, four of them seriously.
On May 10, a United Airlines Boeing 737 passenger plane took off from Fukuoka Airport in Japan and returned due to abnormal flaps. There were about 50 passengers and crew on board, and no one was injured.
On May 12, a Boeing 747 cargo plane taking off from Narita Airport in Japan temporarily returned to Narita Airport due to a hydraulic system failure during the flight and made an emergency landing at Narita Airport, causing no casualties.
The frequent accidents have attracted the attention of the U.S. Department of Justice, and this time Boeing may face serious judicial prosecutions.
Historically, in 2021, Boeing had two fatal accidents involving 737 aircraft (Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019), resulting in a total of 346 deaths. But in January 2021, Boeing reached a $2.5 billion settlement with the Justice Department to avoid prosecution for "misleading federal regulators." Ultimately, Boeing blamed two relatively low-ranking employees.
Now, three years later, this settlement is clearly being violated. Glenn Leon, the criminal division of the U.S. Department of Justice, said in a letter filed in federal court in Texas on Tuesday that Boeing violated the terms of the settlement by failing to make the changes it promised should have. Immediately afterward, the Justice Department also said that Boeing could be prosecuted.
But the problem is that, judging from the Department of Justice's magical evidence collection process for Boeing in the past six months, the reality may not be rehearsed according to the "truth" side. After all, the bizarre deaths of many of Boeing's "whistleblowers" are still vivid......
Death of the whistleblower
Back in January of this year, a Boeing 737 MAX 9 passenger plane of Alaska Airlines was involved in an accident shortly after takeoff, and a door plug (in-line emergency door) on the side of the cabin fell off. Investigators examined and found that four bolts that were supposed to hold the door plug in place were missing.
The incident shocked the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). So on February 28 this year, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced that Boeing would be given 90 days to develop an action plan to address "systemic quality control issues."
Subsequently, a panel of experts appointed to review Boeing's safety management processes found a "disconnect" between the aerospace giant's senior management and employees on safety culture and other issues. The panel also produced a detailed report noting that "Boeing lacks awareness of safety-related metrics at all levels."
This almost overturns the previous Boeing crashes in 2018 and 2019, and if Boeing's internal safety management processes are chaotic, then it is clear that the crash was caused by a systemic cause, not the negligence of a single employee. As a result, the finger was pointed at Boeing, and public opinion suspected that Boeing was deceiving the public and the regulatory authorities.
Then came the drama, on May 2, 2024, as Boeing faced scrutiny over airliner safety, a very important "whistleblower" (whistleblower), Joshua Dean, died unexpectedly.
Dean previously worked for Spirit Aero Systems, a major supplier to Boeing. According to the Seattle Times, in October 2022, Dean discovered a critical manufacturing flaw in the 737 MAX model, and when he raised the issue with management, they did nothing. In addition, he was fired when he discovered another manufacturing flaw in April 2023 that led to the suspension of deliveries at the Boeing Renton plant.
Before his death, Dean told the media that Peri had pressured employees not to report defects so that the planes could be delivered more quickly. But when the case progressed to a critical point, Dean suddenly contracted MRSA without warning, and it only took a few weeks to "go completely quiet."
According to the Seattle Times, Dean lived in Wichita, Kansas, and had always been in good health, leading a healthy lifestyle, staying active and paying attention to his diet, but he somehow contracted methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus and died just two weeks later.
Another "whistleblower," John Barnett, worked at Boeing for more than three decades, holding a quality control engineer position. During his tenure, he discovered that workers who were "under pressure" often installed substandard parts on the aircraft production line. After repeated internal complaints to no avail, he chose to report to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2016.
As a result, instead of the FAA's penalty against Boeing, Boeing demanded that Barnett, who was 55 at the time, "retire" (the normal retirement age in the United States is 65), citing health problems.
As a result, Barnett joined eight other whistleblowers with similar experiences to file a lawsuit against Boeing. The night after he testified to the court, he was found "committing suicide" by being shot in the head in his car. He should have answered more questions, but there was no more.
According to Fox News, Barnett's lawyer said in an interview, "He's in very good spirits, he's looking forward to putting this stage of his life behind and moving on, not seeing any indication that he's going to commit suicide, and we don't believe it." ”
Boeing whistleblower John Barnett, photo: TMZ
Under this "magical" news, the most liked is a "piece of advice": "You can't go against a big company." Over the course of my career, I've seen all sorts of mistakes in company audits, but when I came back to the company to report in, I was fired. Often, there is no one to check and balance the C-suite, and they have undisclosed bribes. My hunch was that he wasn't suicidal and that someone was paying him to 'shut up'. ”
Taking the public for fools?
In March, Boeing, mired in a 737 Max quality crisis, announced a complete management reshuffle, with a chief executive, head of the commercial aircraft business and chairman all replaced.
Boeing issued a statement saying that CEO Dave Calhoun will leave the company at the end of 2024 and that Chairman Larry Kellner will not seek re-election. Stan Deal, head of the Commercial Aircraft Division, will step down immediately and will be replaced by Chief Operating Officer Stephanie Pope.
But it has only been two months, and the reorganized Boeing has begun to have a series of accidents, proving that the crisis in safety and quality of Boeing after personnel changes shows no signs of subsiding. Boeing CEO Carl Horn has more than once made public statements about his safety efforts, but the harsh reality proves that every new accident is a repeat of history.
As the world's safest means of transportation, why do Boeing's planes get into accidents so often? Musk pointed out a possible reason for this.
After the Boeing "door plug fell off" incident in January this year, Musk posted two tweets on X, the first of which was: "Do you want to fly on a plane where 'DEI recruitment' takes precedence over your safety?" This is indeed happening. The second is "People die because of DEI." And the links attached to the tweet are all related to the Boeing incident.
Source: X
What is "DEI" in Musk's mouth? The term itself is an abbreviation for diversity, equality, and inclusion, and DEI recruitment is diversity recruitment, and the workforce should include diverse groups such as African Americans and sexual minorities, which is commonly known as "political correctness".
Opponents of "DEI" argue that due to its bloated administrative system and bureaucracy, "DEI" does not make full use of public resources, but becomes an ideological expression and political propaganda campaign.
In the Boeing series of accidents, "DEI" exists in the details, either explicitly or implicitly. In April, for example, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton asked for the release of documents on its DEI pledges to investigate "whether these pledges are illegal or are compromising the company's safe manufacturing processes" because the implementation of "DEI" is seen by some as affecting normal work, increasing friction and reducing efficiency.
Looking at Boeing's ESG report released in 2022, we can indeed find that the so-called "diversity, equality, and inclusion" occupies a relatively large part of it, and its goal for 2030 is to "increase the number of women and minorities in the company".
Source: 2022 Boeing ESG Report
In fact, the debate over "DEI" has indeed turned into a political debate akin to the "left-right debate." Some foreign media pointed out that Ken Paxton's investigation of "DEI" is part of a larger conservative campaign to prevent other companies from continuing to promote DEI, which is considered by many to be an "anti-ESG strategy".
Aside from the struggles between political parties, many chapters of the ESG report mention Boeing's safety production culture, including but not limited to employees as supervisors "listening carefully to the opinions of subordinates and double-checking" and "encouraging employees to express concerns, ask questions and share ideas".
In summary, Boeing has indeed deceived the public to a certain extent, even if its implementation of "DEI" is quite good, but human life is at stake, and Boeing does put less emphasis on safety in the ESG report, which is indeed a bit of a cart before the horse for an airline. For this point, the author believes that in fact, in the long history of Boeing, there are traces to follow.
The backlash of profits
Peter Robison, a veteran American journalist and writer, once pointed out in the book "Blind Flight" that after Boeing acquired its rival McDonnell Douglas in 1997, the orientation of catering to capital to pursue profits replaced the previous culture of striving for excellence.
The profit-centered orientation enables Boeing to compress and simplify the company's management, R&D and production. In order to compete with the new Airbus model, Boeing rushed to launch the 737 MAX without sufficient testing and verification, laying a hidden danger for future flight safety.
For example, the frequently involved Boeing 737 has been active in the short-haul passenger aircraft market for more than 50 years since its first flight, and has delivered more than 10,000 aircraft to airlines so far. In the past half century, the needs of civil aviation have been constantly changing, and the Boeing 737 has also undergone "magic changes" again and again.
In the case of the Boeing 737 MAX, in order to cope with the competition of the Airbus A320 family, its fuselage was lengthened, the local aerodynamic design was adjusted, and the engines became larger, but at the cost of structural instability: the center of gravity of the aircraft was raised at the front and lowered at the rear, which meant that the 737 MAX family was easier to look up.
In response to this problem, Boeing has designed a system called MCAS, which sends a command to press down on the nose of the aircraft when it detects that the elevation angle of the aircraft's head-up is too large. But the crashes of Indonesia's Lion Air JT610 and Ethiopian Airlines ET302 have evidence pointing to this system.
In addition to the "magic change" of the old model, Boeing outsourced most of its parts production in order to seek more profit performance and a higher valuation in the capital market. In the Boeing aircraft manufacturing process, dozens of factories manufacture key components for the 737 and 787 jets, after which Boeing reassembles the aircraft.
The aforementioned Spire is a typical example of this, it is the sole supplier of many Boeing aircraft airframes, but there are many internal management chaos, and it is conceivable that there are quality control problems in Boeing's supply chain today.
What is ironic is that it is such a giant aviation company, but it is never stingy in spending on political donations every year. According to relevant data, since 1998, Boeing has been in the top 10 of Washington lobbying activities. According to Boeing, in 2015, when the most lobbying funds were spent, the "Boeing Political Action Committee (BPAC)" it established gave more than $2.15 million in "political contributions" in the United States, including congressional and state legislators, governors, mayors, etc. Isn't that ironic?
It is undeniable that Boeing is not an ordinary company, as the "pearl" in the crown of the global arms and civil aviation manufacturing industry, Boeing once represented the top manufacturing industrial capacity of the United States, in the 50s of the last century, machine tools were the most proud industrial barriers in the United States. However, with the successive rise of Japan's manufacturing industry and China's manufacturing industry, the United States has embarked on the road of moving from real to virtual, becoming a financial and media empire, and the manufacturing industry is gradually "hollowing out".
图源：construction-physics
Over the years, Boeing has spent huge sums of money to buy back shares and dividends to please the capital market, and gradually reduced from a leader in the aviation industry to a vassal of the capital market. However, if an aviation and military manufacturing enterprise wants to perform well, it must either increase sales significantly, or reduce costs and increase efficiency.
Since the start of the Sino-US trade war, China has purchased a lot fewer aircraft from Boeing than before, but Europe's Airbus has become the main purchase object of mainland civil aircraft.
In summary, Boeing's dilemma is a systemic dilemma. There are both "internal worries" and "external troubles", and if it continues to develop like this, Boeing, the "heavy weapon of the empire", will eventually fall apart.
Nowadays, ESG has become an important indicator of the modern corporate evaluation system. Its significance is not only corporate responsibility, but also the quantification and manifestation of responsibility is also a manifestation of enterprise competitiveness.
Since the beginning of this year, Boeing's share price has continued to decline, with a cumulative decline of nearly 30%, resulting in the total market value evaporating about 400 billion yuan. This is the market's questioning of the competitiveness of its products/companies. For ESG to be successfully implemented, G is the core after all, and as the world's leading aviation manufacturer, Boeing must work safety.
At present, China's C919 is entering the opportunity of large-scale commercial use, and European Airbus is still eyeing it, leaving Boeing with little time.
#我是ES编辑陈玉立,金山银山不如绿水青山,行业人士𰷄流加微信:YL_hpend,新闻线索亦可邮件至 [email protected]
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