Peter Robison

Discover the corporate scandal that transfixed the world, cost hundreds of innocent lives, and almost destroyed a global institution. Boeing is a century-old titan of industry, having played a role in the early days of commercial flight, Second World War bombing missions and even moon landings. Yet in 2018 and 2019, two crashes of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 killed 346 people. The crashes exposed a shocking pattern of malfeasance, leading to the biggest crisis in the company's history - and one of the costliest corporate scandals ever. How did things go so horribly wrong? Flying Blind is the definitive account of the disasters that shocked the world; a chilling, behind-the-scenes look at the corporate dysfunction which contributed to one of the worst tragedies in modern aviation. It's an expose of a reckless culture where - in a race to beat the competition and reward top executives - Boeing skimped on testing, pressured employees to meet unrealistic deadlines and ultimately convinced regulators to put planes into the air without properly equipping them or their pilots for flight. From award-winning Bloomberg investigative journalist Peter Robison, this is the story of a business gone wildly off course. At once endlessly fascinating and deeply disturbing, it shows how the iconic company fell prey to a win-at-all-costs mentality, threatening an industry and sacrificing countless lives. 'The astoundingly well reported and beautifully told story of the downfall of what was once a great American company. A must-read.' - Bethany McClean, author of All The Devils Are Here and The Smartest Guys In The Room

The definitive expose of how Boeing put profit before passengers, leading to the devastating loss of life in the 737 MAX crashes and the downfall of an American business giant In examining the history of the 737, Flying Blind explores how Boeing's new management degraded a highly-regarded plane with cost-focused mandates and skimped on testing in the race to match a competing plane from Airbus. How Boeing outsourced software work to poorly paid graduates in India and convinced the US Federal Aviation Authority to put the MAX into service without requiring pilots to undergo simulator training, and how ultimately these failures resulted in the deaths of 346 Boeing passengers. Framed around the 737 MAX crashes, Flying Blind is the definitive expose that for the first time tells the larger, decades-long story of how a corrupt corporate culture paved the way for a cataclysm that cost lives.