自波音陷入困境的 737 Max 重新投入使用以来一年——在航空史上最大的停飞之后——业内似乎已达成广泛共识，即这架飞机与今天的任何飞行一样安全。
“我最常被问到的问题是，‘你会乘坐 Max 吗？'答案是肯定的，毫无疑问，我会让我的家人乘坐，”航空安全顾问和 NBC 新闻分析师约翰考克斯，在接受 CNBC 的“美国贪婪”采访时说。
然而，更不清楚的是，波音是否可以在其下一代飞机中避免一连串错误、捷径和管理失误，这些失误导致 2018 年和 2019 年的两起 737 Max 坠机事故导致 346 人死亡——部分归咎于飞机的飞行控制系统。
“我曾希望这将是一次重大的清算。他们会引进新的人，他们会说，“不，我们将回到原来的样子——世界上最好的航空工程公司，我们不会关注每日股价。”但是这没有发生，”美国众议院运输和基础设施委员会主席彼得·德法齐奥（俄勒冈州）在接受采访时说。
毕竟，调查人员认为波音公司内部与坠机事件有关的许多因素——包括与竞争对手空中客车公司的激烈竞争，以及削减成本和加快生产的压力——随着公司试图收复失地而变得更加激烈。这场危机使波音公司损失了大约 200 亿美元，更不用说现在由空客 A320 主导的关键单通道市场的重要份额。
即使在 Max 回归后，波音的商用客机交付量在 2021 年仍落后于空客。
去年，波音公司同意支付 25 亿美元的罚款，以与司法部达成延期起诉协议，以解决该公司向监管机构和公众隐瞒有关 Max 的关键信息的指控。但德法齐奥称这一处罚是“一记耳光”，并谴责了他所说的波音公司持续存在的“隐瞒文化”。
这家总部位于芝加哥的公司在给“美国贪婪”的一份声明中表示，狮航 610 航班和埃塞俄比亚航空公司 302 航班的坠毁导致了根本性的改革。
声明称：“自事故发生以来，波音公司对 737 Max 的设计做出了重大改变，以确保此类事故不再发生。”
失控
世界各地的监管机构在 2019 年禁止这架飞机，因为有消息称，一种被称为机动特性增强系统 (MCAS) 的自动飞行控制系统可能发生故障，导致飞机俯冲，这显然在两次致命的坠机事故中都发生了。
波音公司开发了 MCAS，作为 Max 发动机设计产生的压力的快速解决方案，这可能导致飞机以过高的角度飞行并失速。 MCAS 应该将飞机的机头向下推以进行补偿。但在一系列灾难性的失误中，波音公司允许该系统由单个传感器触发。联邦检察官指控波音工程师向监管机构隐瞒了有关 MCAS 的信息，因此大多数飞行员甚至不知道该系统 - 更不用说如何处理潜在的故障 - 直到第一次坠机之后。
经过 20 个月的审查，包括设计和软件更改以及加强培训，美国联邦航空局于 2020 年底同意允许飞机再次飞行。世界各地的航空公司去年开始让它们恢复服务，尽管它们仍然在一些国家停飞，尤其是中国。
波音在声明中指出，自 2020 年 12 月以来，“195 个国家中的 185 个”已将该喷气式飞机重新投入使用，几乎没有发生任何事故。
声明称：“全球 30 多家航空公司已安全运营 737 MAX 325,000 次收费航班和超过 800,000 小时，时刻表可靠性超过 99%。”
拥有近 50 年飞行员和航空安全专家经验的考克斯表示，这些变化是巨大的进步。
他说：“无意或错误地激活 MCAS 的可能性较小，如果发生这种情况，飞行员将有更好的培训和更多的工具来处理它。”
工作正在进行中
至于波音能否在未来避免类似的灾难，很少有人愿意让该公司受益于它曾经在整个行业享有的怀疑。
资深行业分析师理查德·阿布拉菲亚 (Richard Aboulafia) 表示：“陪审团非常不满意。”他和许多关注该公司的人一样，将 737 Max 的问题追溯到波音公司对工程的关注，而工程技术传统上是该公司的最大优势。
与公司 105 年历史上的大多数领导人不同，他指出波音现任首席执行官詹姆斯卡尔霍恩不是工程师。但 Aboulafia 对公司在过去一年中增加了一些工程师加入其董事会和管理层表示赞赏。
One year after the 737 Max's return, Boeing is still trying to get back on course
One year since Boeing's embattled 737 Max returned to service — following the largest grounding in aviation history — there appears to be a broad consensus in the industry that the plane is as safe as any flying today.
“The question I get asked most frequently is, ‘Would you get on a Max?' And the answer to that is yes, without question, and I would put my family on one,” aviation safety consultant and NBC News analyst John Cox, said in an interview with CNBC's “American Greed.”
Much less clear, however, is whether, in its next generation of aircraft, Boeing can avoid the cascade of errors, shortcuts and management failures that led to 346 deaths in two 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019 — blamed in part on the plane's flight control system.
“I had hoped that this would be a major reckoning. They would bring in someone new and they would say, ‘No, we're going to go back to being what we were — the best aerospace engineering company in the world and we're not going to watch the daily stock price.' But that didn't happen,” U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio, D-Oregon, said in an interview.
After all, many of the forces within Boeing that investigators have linked to the crashes — including fierce competition with rival Airbus, as well as pressures to cut costs and speed up production — have only gotten more intense as the company tries to regain lost ground. The crisis has cost Boeing some $20 billion, not to mention a significant share of the crucial, single-aisle market now dominated by the Airbus A320.
Even after the return of the Max, Boeing's commercial airliner deliveries lagged Airbus in 2021.
Last year, Boeing agreed to pay $2.5 billion in fines in a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department to settle charges the company hid critical information about the Max from regulators and the public. But DeFazio called the penalty a “slap on the wrist,” and has decried what he calls an ongoing “culture of concealment” at Boeing.
In a statement to “American Greed,” the Chicago-based company said the crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 led to fundamental reforms.
“Since the accidents, Boeing has made significant changes as a company, and to the design of the 737 Max, to ensure that accidents like those never happen again,” the statement said.
Out of control
Regulators around the world banned the plane in 2019 following revelations that an automated flight control system known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, could malfunction, sending the plane into a dive, which it apparently did in both fatal crashes.
Boeing had developed MCAS as a quick fix for stresses resulting from the Max's engine design, which could cause the plane to fly at too high of an angle and stall. MCAS was supposed to push the nose of the plane down to compensate. But in a series of disastrous blunders, Boeing allowed the system to be triggered by a single sensor. And federal prosecutors alleged Boeing engineers withheld information about MCAS from regulators, so most pilots did not even know about the system — let alone how to deal with the potential malfunction — until after the first crash.
After a 20-month review that included design and software changes as well as enhanced training, the FAA agreed in late 2020 to allow the plane to fly again. Airlines around the world began returning them to service last year, though they remain grounded in some countries, most notably China.
In its statement, Boeing noted that “185 out of 195 countries” have returned the jet to service since December 2020, with virtually no incidents.
“More than 30 airlines globally have safely operated the 737 MAX for 325,000 revenue flights and more than 800,000 hours, with schedule reliability above 99%,” the statement said.
Cox, who has almost 50 years of experience as a pilot and aviation safety expert, said the changes are vast improvements.
“It is less likely that an inadvertent or mistaken MCAS activation will occur, and should it occur, the pilots have better training and more tools to handle it,” he said.
Work in progress
As for whether Boeing can avoid similar disasters in the future, few are willing to give the company the benefit of the doubt it once enjoyed across the industry.
“The jury is very much out,” said veteran industry analyst Richard Aboulafia, who, like many who follow the company, traces the problems with the 737 Max to a loss of focus at Boeing on engineering, traditionally the company's biggest strength.
Unlike most leaders in the company's 105-year history, he noted that Boeing's current CEO, James Calhoun, is not an engineer. But Aboulafia gave the company some credit for adding some engineers to its board and management ranks in the past year.
