737 Summary jan 2 seattle times
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Jan. 2, 2020 at 6:00 am Updated Jan. 2, 2020 at 1:11 pm
In a series of stories that led media coverage of the two deadly crashes of Boeing’s 737 MAX jet, The Seattle Times was the first to reveal how Boeing misinformed the Federal Aviation Administration and airlines about key features of the plane’s automated flight control system.
The weekend after the second crash, a Seattle Times front-page story — citing proprietary Boeing information submitted to the FAA — laid bare how the federal regulator was not fully informed as Boeing expanded the powers of its MCAS flight control system, the automated software whose malfunctioning killed 346 people.
The follow-up stories, using numerous internal Boeing and FAA documents obtained by our reporters, showed how the flawed design was approved by a flawed regulatory process as the FAA increasingly delegated responsibility for safety assessments to the manufacturer, and how management at both organizations pressed for shortcuts and money-saving solutions against the recommendations of both low-level FAA officials and Boeing safety experts.