 wouldn't take much for me to avoid flying. Although I naturally have an interest in the aircraft themselves, this is probably due to, as I mentioned before, my father's career in the aerospace industry. As a child we had all sorts of schematics, bits of test equipment, and regular trips to weapon shows. Even when I was in the air training cadets as a teenager, I loved learning about how aircraft worked, but whenever I had to go up in one, the anxiety began to close in. Oh, and I also loved the fact that a Ministry of Defence sponsored organisation aimed at children also allowed us to handle field strip and fire Lienfield Martini Henry and SA-80 rifles. Who said us Brits were a gun shy society? Anyway, today's subject definitely hasn't improved my anxiety when it comes to being more than a couple of 100 feet above ground level. In this episode of Scandal, we're going to peek behind the curtain of one of aviation's newest and arguably worst scandals, that is of the Boeing 737 MAX, its victims and cover-up. Welcome to Scandal, a new plainly difficult series. It's March 2019 and billions of dollars worth of aircraft are just sitting around in parking fields around the world. The images could be mistaken for the beginning of the first of the lockdowns to follow a year later, but instead of a pandemic, these groundings are of only one type of aircraft, the Boeing 737 MAX. 346 depths and two strikingly similar aircraft crashes and a new feature deliberately hidden from the pilots are the reason. These planes are by anyone's standards brand new and only a few years before the 737 MAX was promoted to the world as the new and efficient aircraft carriers have been waiting for. Save fuel, save money, it's better for the environment, what's not to like. Also because it's based on an already existing design, crew training costs should be cheap too. But how in just a few years did we go from the fanfare of the first flight in 2016 to the disasters of 2018 and 2019? Background. Boeing's history goes back a long way to during the First World War when it was called Pacific Aeroproducts Company. This would be changed after only one year of operation to the Boeing Aeroplane Company in 1917. In the early days, the company under the leadership of William E. Boeing built planes as well as operating them for customers. In 1929, the company was renamed again to United Aircraft and Transport Corporation. Under this name, the company acquired even more small businesses. Its airlines part of the business was merged to make United Airlines and in 1934, its operations and manufacturing parts of the business were split up. The manufacturing side continued to expand. It would make a lot of money when the brewing storm clouds of war hit the US in the late 1930s. They've manufactured loads of B-17s and B-29 bombers, making the company twelfth among the United States corporations in value of wartime production contracts. But bombers became great testbeds for developing the transporting of not deadly weapons, but instead people on business trips and holidays. I'm going to fast forward to the 1960s with Boeing's development of what will become one of the world's best-selling jetliners, the 737. By this time, Boeing had taken the crown as the leading airliner manufacturer. Although not first to market, their 707 passenger plane became the de facto face of jet travel. This was because it had a great feature of not exploding in midair, and I'm looking at you, the Comet. Right, back to the 737. A very popular product. The concept for a new airliner for the Boeing company came out of a need to offer a product that could supplement its customers' 727 fleets of short hop, tri-engined planes. The 727 had been developed to cover the smaller local airport market, which the much larger 4-engine 707 would struggle to make financially viable. Consider it like a small local bus compared to a big intercity coach. Well, the 737 was to be similar as early market research indicated a need for a capacity of around 50-60 passengers. As such, the new aircraft would have two engines. In an effort to reduce costs, Boeing tried to make use of as many parts out of the bin from the 737's sisters. Similar fuselage from the 707 and similar flight control equipment from the 727. The original designs had rear-mounted engines, but quickly this was changed to wing-mounted pods aided in passenger capacity. The engines were mounted directly to the wing, allowing for shorter landing gear, which had the useful side effect of making luggage loading and unloading quicker, but could cause issues for any future larger re-engine projects. The stand at the time was hydro-mechanical flight controls. This is that all movements are transmitted from the pilot's stick via cables to hydraulic servo valves, which then powers the actuators, which in turn move the flaps and other control surfaces on the wings and tail. Well, from paper to air only took three years with the 737's maiden flight on the 9th of April 1967. Not long after several successful test flights, the Federal Aviation Administration issued Type Certificate A16WE, giving a big thumbs up to the 737-100 for commercial flight on the 15th of December 1967, with Lufthansa passengers becoming the first people to fly a commercial flight with the new jet on the 10th of February 1968. The aircraft were gone to dominate the market for the next few decades, all while Boeing continued to tweak and improve the design. However, the rather archaic control system remained. The design was not without issues, one such would rear its ugly head in the 1990s. On the 3rd of March 1991, United Airlines 585, a Boeing 737-200, would experience a sudden right-hand nose pitch down, whilst attempting to land in Colorado Springs. The resulting crash killed all 25 aboard. What was perplexing to investigators was that the captain of 585 operated a strict and conservative cockpit, strongly adhering to rules and procedures. A second remarkably similar event happened on the 8th of September 1994, US Air Flight 427, a larger Boeing 737-300. It crashed near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This time, it was a nose-down left turn. The pilots managed to wrestle the plane level only for it to turn a second time. Sadly, the aircraft and all 132 were lost. There was a theory regarding the 1991 crash that an uncommanded rudder movement was to cause, but sadly the wreckage was too mangled to find the defect. The NTSB would finally get a break when a third plane, East Wind Airlines Flight 517 on the 9th of June 1996, briefly experienced an unexpected rudder command. Thankfully, the plane landed safely. The crew and passengers also survived. The NTSB were able to gather valuable information from the aircraft and crew, resulting in a preliminary conclusion of a faulty rudder PCU and its dual-survey valve. This could jam and turn the rudder in the opposite direction of the pilot's input. Needless to say, the event would confuse flight controls with deadly results. Boeing and the NTSB would test multiple units, confirming the fault and ordering Boeing to completely replace all units by 2002. Well, although this horrendously expensive fault was dealt with, a new aircraft not from Boeing, but a rival would start eating up the industry. Airbus 1987 would see the first flight of the 737's biggest competitor, the A320. Up until the late 1980s, the 737 dominated the market, but after A320 was released, air carriers now had a solid alternative. With this competition, the two aircraft became intertwined. As such, each company set out to improve upon and develop their popular platforms. Because the A320 was newer, it had a much more modern fly-by-wire control system, where the pilot's controls aren't mechanically coupled to the hydraulic actuators that move the flaps. Instead, the pilot's controls are from a joystick which transmits electrical signals to the control services. This helps maintenance costs, as there is no complex systems of mechanical linkages and cables to deal with. It was lighter, being made out of composite materials, and boasted a wider cabin at 3.95 outside diameter meters, compared to 3.8 meters to 737. Airbus boasted that the 737-300 burnt 35% more fuel, and has 16% higher operating cost per seat than the V2500-powered A320. And fuel and maintenance costs are vital for scraping as much profit out of shorter routes. The new plane essentially made budget airlines a possibility, but the 737 still proved popular, and as such carried on even at the new millennium. It was now in its third generation, aptly named Next Generation 737, which was launched in 1997. Next Gen Development was directly caused by Boeing's old sister company, starting to make orders for, you guessed it, the A320. As the early 2000s came along, the 737NG was the standard offering from Boeing. But, although better than the 2nd Gen Classic 737, the design was still showing its age. Why not design and build a brand new aircraft with the idea of improving efficiency and the like, you may ask. Well, Boeing had thought of that already. During 2006, the company pondered on the idea of a completely new design to be out for 2010. Initial interest from the market looked good, but Airbus was about to put a spanner in the works. In December 2010, a new A320 was announced. This was to be called the NEO, or new engine option, and was aimed squarely at efficiency. The new model was essentially a re-engine design with two more fuel efficient turbofan units, either from CFM International Leap or the Pratt & Whitney PW1000G. With the addition of wing shock lids, you know the little bent parts on the wing tips, the A320 NEO boasted 15-20% more fuel efficiency than the previous generation 320. Don't forget that the previous generation was already more efficient than the 737. As such, the NEO hit the market strongly. Over 600 commitments were made at the Paris Air Show, and by the end of the year, the total backlog of orders exceeded 1000. This made, the A320 NEO, the world record holder for opening orders. This didn't go unnoticed by Boeing, but they were adamant that a new plane was the way to go. But long-term, customer American Airlines would sway Boeing to scrap a clean sheet design when it ordered 260 air buses, breaking the previous Boeing monopoly at the airline. But it wasn't all terrible. American Airlines also tacked on 10737 next-gen, as well as requesting 10737's re-engined with the CFM Leap, the same engine offering the A320 NEO came to market with. And here enters the 4th generation 737 MAX. The 737 MAX. Okay, it feels like it's taken a while to get here. We are nearly 1800 words into the script, and only now we are talking about the subject for the video. But by now, you all must know I do love a bit of context. The new re-engined 737 was approved by Boeing's Board of Directors on 30th August 2011. It was hoped that the project would achieve a 4% reduction in fuel burn rate compared to the A320. Great, the new aircraft will also offer airline fleets that already operated the 737, the benefit of not needing significant crew training. To decrease the drag of the 737, it received split wingtips. And the new larger engines, now too big for the original placement, were placed further forward and higher. But this was found in testing to significantly change the aircraft's dynamic properties by causing a nose-up situation. To bring the flight characteristics back to what a pilot should expect from a 737, a system called Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, was implemented. This would use software to engage the horizontal stabilizers. In the case of the MAX, this would be used to account for a nose-up situation to cause one new engine, and thus bring the nose back down. We'll put a pin in the MCAS system and come back to that in a bit. So, because the new plane was already a certified airframe, development time was greatly reduced, along with the reduced red tape that a whole new design would attract. Reportedly, by November 2011, Boeing had amassed 700 commitments. Four years after the program launched, in August 2015, the first fuselage rolled off the production line. The first flight took place on the 29th of January 2016 at Renton Municipal Airport. Nothing out of the ordinary had been reported, and a year later, the aircraft received its FAA license in March, followed soon after by the remaining worldwide licenses. As orders started to stack up, carriers had to prepare their crews in the operation of the new aircraft. Traditionally, for brand new airplanes, several hours of simulator time is needed. This costs money, firstly in actually purchasing a simulator, or updating the sims the company already has, and secondly, the downtime of taking your pilots out of productive work to put them in said simulator. Well, with the 737 MAX, and due to its sharing its type rating with the 737 next-gen, because of the MCAS, pilots only needed to undertake a tablet-based training course. Strangely, but deliberately, the MCAS was omitted from the 737 MAX's manual. This was in an effort to minimise the new system's significance from the Federal Aviation Authority, and thus keep down retraining and licensing costs. Okay, I think it's time to talk about how the MCAS system works. MCAS. MCAS was not a new system when it was used in the MAX. Boeing had been installing it into its military tanker variant 767 from 2013. MCAS works to avoid a stall by manipulating the horizontal stabilisers, but it's not the same as a stick pusher. It was employed in the Boeing KC-46 Pegasus to help balance the plane during mid-air fuelling, but the 737 MAX's sole purpose was to make the plane feel like its predecessor, because the new bigger engines were placed further forward than in previous generations. This system was only active when the MAX was under manual control. It was given in the software of the plane control system, complete authority to bring the aircraft nose down when it detected a potential stall. The pilot's inputs into the controls would not override the MCAS. In November 2016, two of Boeing 737's MAX flight technician pilots discovered changes to the MCAS system. Instead of informing the FAA, Boeing, through these two pilots, concealed this information and deceived the FAA, meaning the changes weren't added to the flight manuals, thus limiting the perceived effect of the system on the operation of the aircraft, hiding the severity of MCAS from pilots. This in turn allowed Boeing to advertise the aircraft as not requiring significant retraining. The difference between the 737 and the KC-46 MCAS system was that it was activated when a single angle of attack sensor detected the nose rising too far, even though there were two sensors on board, which meant the system was susceptible to a single point failure. If both sensors disagree, an alert can be given to the pilot on a screen. However, this was an optional paid extra, and not all operators purchased this. The first 737 MAX delivery was made on 16 May 2017, to Malindo Air, a subsidiary of the low-cost Indonesian carrier Lion Air, and from there deliveries continued, with carriers around the world receiving their shiny new 737's. By May of 2018, around 130 Max's were in service, with 28 airlines, racking up over 40,000 in-service flights. This number would increase as more aircraft were delivered. One such in August 2018 was a 737 MAX 8, registration PK LQP. This plane would become the first 737 MAX accident, and the worst in the whole lifespan of the 737. A Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX 8 carrying 189 people crashed into the sea this morning. Now I know I've mentioned this whole issue of reducing pilot training needs a few times in this video, but this section shows why it is such a bad idea to hide a new system from pilots, even if it saves you a whole load of money. It is the morning of the 29th of October 2018, and 31 year old Captain Sunija and 41 year old co-pilot Harvino prepare their 737 MAX for a flight from Jakarta to Pankau, Penang, Indonesia. Both pilots are very experienced with the captain having amassed over 5000 hours in the 737. The aircraft today is pretty new, having just over 500 hours of operation. The crew arrangement for today's flight was a little bit last minute, with the co-pilot only being informed at around 4 o'clock in the morning. And to add more misery to the morning, the captain is suffering from the flu. With all crew, including a Lion Air engineer and passengers aboard, the co-pilot seeks authority to taxi to the runway from Jakarta, ATC. Captain Sunija is at the controls. Jakarta issues takeoff clearance and the plane departs the runway at 6.20 and 33 seconds in the morning. Just three seconds later, the stick shaker begins. The plane thinks it's about to stall. An air traffic controller clears the pilots to climb to 27,000 feet. The altitude being displayed to the pilots wasn't making any sense. The co-pilot asks for confirmation of their altitude from ATC and it replied 700 feet. The confusion in the cockpit increased as the two men tried to find the correct checklist. They attempted to climb but the nose keeps on being pushed down. None of the readings are matching up. An excess speed warning sounds as the plane is descending. 11 minutes after takeoff, the voice recorder picks up the automatic warnings terrain-terrain followed by sink rate. At 6.33am, Lion Air Flight 610 loses communication contact with ATC. The plane and all 189 aboard are gone. Indonesia's Transport Ministry ordered emergency inspections of all the 737 MAX 8s in the nation's fleet. But all seemed good. Preliminary investigations hinted at a control issue, stemming from a faulty angle of attack sensor. The airplane's digital flight data recorder recorded a difference between the left and right angle of attack sensors that was present during the entire final flight. It was found that one of the sensors had been replaced two days before and issues with the stick shaker and erratic nose down situations were experienced. Now why you may ask was the plane still flying? Well according to Lion Air officials, Boeing maintenance guidance did not state that it was required to take the plane out of service for that particular fault. The previous four flights had reported similar issues, hinting that just a single sensor failure could cause a nose down situation. But bear in mind the MCAS system had not actually been officially announced by Boeing. In November, Boeing released an operations manual bulletin, advising airline operators how to address erroneous cockpit readings. All whilst the Lion Air crash was being investigated, 737 MAXs continued to be delivered and hundreds of aircraft flew day in day out. Even though Boeing were aware of the one sensor, failure equals nose dive event and the fact that pilots would more than likely be caught off guard by this. By March 2019, Boeing had delivered 386 of the 737 MAX jets throughout the world. But a worrying case of Groundhog Day would hit the industry on the 10th of March. Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 was a 737 MAX 8, the same as the ill-fated Lion Air 610. It was scheduled to be an international passenger flight from Addis Abba, Ethiopia, to Nairobi, Kenya. The captain of the morning flight was Yared Getichal, a 29-year-old who had over 8,000 hours under his belt. The first officer, however, was a new graduate, Ahmed Nour Mohamed Nour, aged 25. He only had around 360 flight hours locked. There were a total of 149 passengers and 8 crew on board. At 8.37 and 34 seconds AM local time, on the 10th of March, ATC issued takeoff clearance to ET302. Takeoff roll began from the runway and all seemed normal. Values of the left and right angle of attack sensors also matched. At 0, 8, 3, 8 and 44 seconds AM, shortly after lift-off, the left and right AOA values deviated. Just like with Lion Air a few months before, the stick began to shake, telling the pilots that the plane thought it was going to stall. The MCAS system then activated and pushed the nose down. The pilots wrestled with the 737, managing to just about keep it in the air. The MCAS activated again, dropping the nose. At 8.40 and 35 seconds, the first officer called out, STAB Trim Cutout. The captain agreed and the Trim tab system was then cut out. This also killed the MCAS, but the plane was still trimmed for a nose-down scenario. And with the engine still at takeoff power, the ground was getting ever closer. The pilots attempted to manually crank the stabilizers to a neutral position. At 8.43, the captain requested switching back on the trim tab system in order to regain neutral stabilisation. But this also switched back on the MCAS. With the MCAS back on the plane, it went further into a nose-down position and crashed at 8.44, 6 minutes after takeoff. Flight 302 had hit the ground at roughly 700mph. Needless to say, there were no survivors. The flight data recorders were found pretty quickly and were sent to France for investigation. Pretty quickly, the similarities with Lionair 610 were undeniable. On 4 April 2019, the ECAA issued its preliminary report. Although not naming MCAS directly, it did state that the automatic trim command occurred without any corresponding motion of the stabiliser. Boeing's Dennis Mullenberg released a statement which tried to push the blame onto the pilots. Pretty dick move if you ask me. Even other pilots, such as the Hudson River Miracle pilot Sully Sullenberger, stated after attempting the event in the simulator. It's been obvious since the Lionair crash that a redesign of the 737 MAX 8 has been urgently needed, yet has still not been done. And announced proposed fixes do not go far enough. He went on to say that a co-pilot with around 200 hours would have insufficient experience to deal with such a stressful situation. Hello John here. Have you ever wondered who made the racket in the background to this video or the other scandal episodes? Or even the outro songs on pretty much every recent plain difficult episode? Well wonder no more as it was made by me John. And you can now listen to the songs in full on my new YouTube channel made by John, stream them on Spotify or even if you fancy buy them to keep forever on Beatport and iTunes. I enjoy making my personal mix of Acid House, Breakbeat and Ambient and I hope you'll enjoy listening to it as much as I did making it. Right back to scandal and Boeing's less than ethical business practices. The groundings. Boeing would be hit hard when airlines around the world started grounding their 737 fleets, starting with Ethiopian Airlines on the 10th of March 2019, followed on March 11th, the Chinese Aviation Authority, ordering all Chinese operated 737 maxes followed by the EU. Only one country still held that the max was airworthy, the good old USA. But they couldn't piss into the wind for too long, eventually grounding all of the US maxes on the 13th of March 2019. Officially by March 18th, 2019 all 387 aircraft in service were grounded. This would mark a financially crippling time for Boeing. Delays after delays would haunt Boeing as it promised software updates to reinstate the plane but would keep on being delayed. As the delay to the software mounted the plane came under increasing scrutiny. Production was cut by one-fifth in April 2019 but this wouldn't be the end. 737 max customers were doubly hit with useless aircraft and reduced schedules. The A320 at this point probably felt like a better option. During 2019, multiple investigations and committee meetings were held to discuss the max, and two of which were quite extreme in the differences in their questioning. A committee meeting in May opened up with a very favorable to Boeing line of accusations from Sam Graves of Missouri, ranking member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. He would state. For me, the action report reaffirms my belief that pilots trained in the United States would have successfully been able to handle this situation. The reports compound my concerns about quality training standards in other countries and that's why I've asked the DOT Inspector General to look at international pilot training. This committee meeting was directly quoting from a report paid for by institutional investors with large holdings in Boeing's stock. However, even the simulator runs used in the report kind of contradict this. At one instance, the crew was only saved by the pilot's undertaking a very old technique called the roller coaster method. This involved letting the yoke go to relieve the forces on the tail, then cranking the wheel and repeating this several times. This technique has not been in US pilot manuals for decades and during the simulator session, the pilot lost 8,000 feet of altitude. I should say that in the real life scenario of the Ethiopian Airlines crash, they never even reached 8,000 feet to begin with. In October 2019, Boeing Company President and Chief Executive Officer Dennis Mullenberg testified before the Senate Transportation Committee hearing on aviation safety and the future of Boeing 737 MAX. It was grilled with questions about internal messages that had raised concerns over the MCAS issue of a single failed sensor. During the Senate committee, it was highlighted that in the contract with Southwest Airlines, the largest 737 MAX operator, that Boeing would be required to pay the airline $1 million per aircraft delivered if pilots needed to undertake simulator training. Clearly something Boeing would not have liked to have done, thus giving reason to downplay the MCAS system from the FAA and the airlines. When asked about the single sensor activation of MCAS, Mullenberg said, we tried to rely on previous architecture, we learned and we're moving to a two sensor architecture. On discovering, accountability rep Daniel Lipinski of Illinois asked, I'm not sure what accountability means if you received a $15 million bonus after these planes crashed. Questions were also brought to the CEO about self-certified specifications of the plane because it was a derivative of the current type. Mullenberg denied any knowledge of the internal messages and proved to be not a good look. But how did Boeing manage to get this new potentially deadly feature past the FAA? Well, in a December 2018 Boeing slideshow, the company set out how it felt the MCAS didn't need to be individually assessed, as it did not consider it new or novel. Boeing had an organization designation authorization. This allows certain certifications and safety checks to be delegated away from the FAA to a manufacturer. This helped the FAA not have to be involved in every aspect of the certification of an aircraft, but it was intended for minor non-safety things rather than major control and safety issues. Self certifying your own products, I can't imagine that ever being abused. If it had individually assessed the MCAS then the FAA would have needed to have been involved in assessing the new system. The company argued that MCAS wasn't new or novel because a similar system was previously used in the 767 tanker for the Air Force, but the implementation was different as the 767 used data from both AOA sensors to determine if MCAS would intervene, whereas the 737 MAX only used one. Well, a review of Boeing's organization designation authorization resulted in, November 26, the FAA revoking Boeing's ability to issue airworthiness certificates for individual MAX aeroplanes. The FAA set out four required improvements for the MAX before it could be ungrounded. First, installing new flight control computer software. This change is intended to prevent erroneous MCAS activation, among other safeguards. Installing updated cockpit display system software to generate an AOA disagree alert. This will alert pilots that the aeroplanes to AOA sensors are disagreeing by a certain amount, indicating a potential AOA sensor failure. Incorporating new and revised operating procedures into aeroplane flight manuals. This change is intended to ensure the flight crew has the means to recognize and respond to erroneous stabilizer movements and the effects of a potential AOA sensor failure. Changing the routing of horizontal stabilizer trim wires. This is intended to bring the aeroplane into full compliance with the FAA's wire separation safety standards. In addition to these four design changes, the FAA also will require operators to conduct an AOA sensor system test and perform an operational readiness flight prior to returning each aeroplane to service. But as 2019 was drawn to a close, the company took another nosedive, excuse the pun, when 737 MAX was production completely paused on December 17. Later on in the month, Dennis Mullenberg resigned to be replaced by board chairman David Calhoun. In September of 2020, a final committee report on the Boeing 737 MAX was released. It put the blame on Boeing and the FAA saying, both Boeing and the FAA share responsibility for the future development and ultimate certification of an aircraft that was unsafe. There was tremendous financial pressure on Boeing and the 737 MAX program to compete with Airbus's new A320 Neo aircraft. Among other things, this pressure resulted in extensive efforts to cut costs, maintain the 737 program schedule and avoid slowing the 737 MAX production line. On the 27th of May, Boeing resumed production of the MAX, albeit slowly, and a month later, test flights resumed to achieve recertification. The light was at the end of the tunnel for the MAX as it would soon return to the skies. The updates had been done and test flights were underway. In September 2020, FAA administrator and ex-Delta Airlines, Boeing 737 pilot Stephen Dixon conducted a two-hour test flight. He had previously stated that the MAX could not return to service until he had personally undergone the new training and test flight. This went ahead with no issues and a month later, on the 18th of November 2020, the FAA issued a continuing airworthiness notification, which essentially revoked the grounding. And over the coming months, gradually, aviation authorities had started allowing the MAX back into the skies. However, all throughout the grounding and return to service, a criminal case against Boeing was brewing. The criminal case. I should say that this episode of scandal makes a hat-trick of companies being responsible for multiple deaths and being able to dodge any prison time. In January, Boeing was charged with a 737 MAX fraud conspiracy, which Boeing agreed to pay a fine. Prosecutors stated, Boeing's employees chose the path of profit over candle by concealing material information from the FAA concerning the operation of its 737 MAX aeroplane and engaging in an effort to cover up their deception. This resolution holds Boeing accountable for its employees' criminal misconduct, addresses the financial impact to Boeing's airline's customers, and hopefully provides some measure of compensation to the crash victims' families and beneficiaries. The misleading statements, half-truths and omissions communicated by Boeing employees to the FAA impeded the government's ability to ensure the safety of the flying public, as well as saying, today's the third prosecution agreement holds Boeing and its employees accountable for their lack of candor with the FAA regarding MCAS. The company agreed to pay over $2.5 billion. This was made up of a criminal penalty of $243.6 million and $177 billion of damages to airline customers, as well as $500 million to a crash victim fund. In the process, Boeing stock price tanked, which probably wasn't helped by the worldwide pandemic as well, but the company had begun to turn things around with the new and less-crashy 737 MAX, in which customers are still receiving new orders, and to date, 840 units have been built. My conclusion? Well, we can say the 737 MAX was doomed from the start. When Boeing promised the new, much too big engines, this left engineers to try and sort out the balancing issues by shoe-hauling the MCAS system into the aircraft and downplaying its significance from regulators, customers and pilots. This allowed Boeing to dodge any fees for retraining pilots as set out in its order contracts, essentially allowing the company to sell the plane as just a continuation from the previous generation and not a new aircraft. Boeing was allowed to self-certify and cover up the changes to the MAX, all of which had been disclosed to the FAA. In what seemed like a massive U-turn, and probably to appease the powers that be, Boeing announced in January 2020 that simulator training was recommended for crews returning to the 737 MAX after the fleet's ungrounding. This is a plainly difficult production. All videos on our channel are Creative Commons attributions share alike licensed. Plainly difficult videos are produced by me, John, in a currently average southern corner of suburban London, UK. I'd like to thank my Patreons for all your financial support, as well as my YouTube members for all your financial support. You can check out my Twitter for hints on future videos, as well as photos and odds and sorts of the usual random things I get up to day to day. And all that's left to say is Mr Music, can you play us out please?