That's pretty standard procedure - when the cargo door blew out of the United 747 near Hawaii, Boeing spent a boatload of cash to find and recover the door so they could find out what went wrong and make sure it didn't happen again.
Oh hell yea they did...
First off, that was not the first time a 747 door had failed, ....the incident you cite where the door had failed in
1989 on a Pan Am flight near HI, it was at least the second reported incident. There was a failure reported 2 years earlier...
WHY Boeing spent so much time on finding the door, was they did not correct the door failure after the first failure.
The next time the door failed, 2 years later, on a United Airlines 747 near Honolulu in 1989, the Boeing jet faced an “explosive decompression,” and nine passengers were “ejected from the airplane and lost at sea.
This is why they spent so much time and money, was that their lack of response in correcting the design fault, that has now killed 9 people....trying to determine blame...well...yes, they certainly had an impetus to make sure it did not happen again, they just killed 9 people on a known issue.
From the final report:
Also contributing to the accident was a lack of timely corrective actions by Boeing and the FAA following a 1987 cargo door-opening incident on a Pan Am B-747,” the NTSB said.
How many people did their lack of response to a known issue, put at risk, and kill with the MAX?
Face it, Boeing knew the issues, and failed to disclose to the FAA and the pilots...putting at risk EVERYONE who flew on those aircraft since being certified to fly.