Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know, a production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh and there's
Speaker 2: Chuck and we are just flying the friendly skies with
Speaker 2: our co pilot Jerry and our other copilot God. And
Speaker 2: this is stuff you should know. I thought it was
Speaker 2: dog Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, Well before we get going, there is kind of
Speaker 1: an exciting thing we need to mention. And we're gonna
Speaker 1: mention this. You know, you're probably gonna get sick of
Speaker 1: us talking about it. But stuff you should know is
Speaker 1: going on a cruise, Yeah, sea cruise, and not just
Speaker 1: like so long, suckers, we're going on vacation, right, it's
Speaker 1: like a stuff cruise with other like stuff they don't
Speaker 1: want you to know is going to be there. We're
Speaker 1: doing our live podcast on board and it's like, hey,
Speaker 1: stuff you should know listeners, Come come cruise with us.
Speaker 2: Yeah, come cruise with us. I think that's the message
Speaker 2: that we're out right now. Is on Virgin Voyages. It's
Speaker 2: just pretty swank, and it's October second to the seventh.
Speaker 2: It's five day cruise from New York City to Bermuda
Speaker 2: and back. Even they bring you back to your car.
Speaker 1: I think I think that's kind of key. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: an adults only thing, yep. And I think the name
Speaker 1: of it is the Big Apple to Bermuda Cruise. And yeah,
Speaker 1: it's gonna be a lot of fun. So you know,
Speaker 1: like I said, we're doing our live podcast and we're
Speaker 1: gonna be doing some other fun events that they haven't
Speaker 1: told us about yet. The feeling will be like trivia
Speaker 1: and stuff like that. But Jerry is going, and that's
Speaker 1: reason enough to sign up. I think.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you can verify in person that Jerry is.
Speaker 1: It's right. You might be able to rub some suntan
Speaker 1: lotion on her back too.
Speaker 2: So where do people go to sign up for this
Speaker 2: sea cruise?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know what I would do. I think we're
Speaker 1: gonna have some like super specific information coming, but just
Speaker 1: get on your search engine and check out stuff at
Speaker 1: sea Virgin Voyages and that'll direct you. I can't wait.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I can't wait either. We'll see all of you
Speaker 2: in October on the high seas.
Speaker 1: That's right. This episode is not about ships. Actually, it's
Speaker 1: about a plane.
Speaker 2: Which is technically a ship. It's an airship.
Speaker 1: An airship. Yeah, yeah, that's a good way.
Speaker 2: To say it. Yeah, that's how most people say it.
Speaker 1: I'm trying to watch what I say about this one
Speaker 1: because it's pretty touchy.
Speaker 2: It is touchy, but it's just such a shameful chapter
Speaker 2: in the history of what was long regarded one of
Speaker 2: the best engineering firms in the world, the Boeing Corporation.
Speaker 2: They made great airplanes, They were very innovative, they made
Speaker 2: very safe airplanes. They cared about the details. They put
Speaker 2: engineering standards before profit, and all of that just got
Speaker 2: wiped out in the course of a few years, from
Speaker 2: about two thoy eighteen to nineteen. All of it just
Speaker 2: wentroop when it came to light that they had flip
Speaker 2: flopped that a few years before and profits now came
Speaker 2: before standards.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, we'll talk about in more detail, but
Speaker 1: you know, the end result, as everybody knows at this point,
Speaker 1: is two of their seven thirty seven Max planes crashed,
Speaker 1: fell out of the sky. Yeah, and killed a lot
Speaker 1: of people. Super sad and it's very sort of anger
Speaker 1: inducing when you know the story behind it all. So
Speaker 1: we're gonna detail that now starting. I guess we should
Speaker 1: say that the seven thirty seven Max airplane that we're
Speaker 1: talking about was a brand new fleet that was gonna
Speaker 1: replace the old seven thirty sevens and compete with their rival, Airbus,
Speaker 1: the Airbus A three twenty neo.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and Airbus has long been Boeing's rival since Boeing
Speaker 2: bought McDonald Douglass back in I think the nineties, and
Speaker 2: so it's just been Boeing Airbus head to head to
Speaker 2: supply the world with their airplanes and the seven thirty
Speaker 2: seven Max. The reason that they were updating the seven
Speaker 2: thirty sevens is one, like you said, these were old
Speaker 2: seven thirty sevens that needed to be replaced. But also
Speaker 2: so that Airbus A three twenty neo it was like
Speaker 2: a step up, like it was the same kind of body,
Speaker 2: like I think a narrow body is what it's called
Speaker 2: narrowbody mid sized plane as the seven thirty seven. So
Speaker 2: companies now had an option they could be like, well,
Speaker 2: we're going to go with this Airbus instead of replacing
Speaker 2: the Bowings with Boeings. So Boeing said, good god, we've
Speaker 2: got to get out there and give them something that
Speaker 2: they're going to want. Besides this A three twenty neo.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, I think should should we save talk
Speaker 1: of the actual incidents untill later, I.
Speaker 2: Think just mentioning that they happened was enough for now.
Speaker 1: All right, Well, what you're gonna hear is gonna infuriate
Speaker 1: you a little bit. It's also gonna shine a bit
Speaker 1: of a light on some of the which will also
Speaker 1: infuriate you. Just some of the systemic problems with the
Speaker 1: airline industry as a whole and how these planes are
Speaker 1: approved for being safe to fly in the sky. And
Speaker 1: the FAA is going to take some hits deservedly. But
Speaker 1: we should probably start out by talking about Boeing. You know,
Speaker 1: you mentioned that they were, you know, dedicated to the
Speaker 1: top notch engineering for decades and decades, but starting in
Speaker 1: the nineties that started to change, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there was a CEO that kind of kicked it
Speaker 2: all off. His name was Philip Condit, and in nineteen
Speaker 2: ninety seven he said, we're going to acquire McDonald douglas.
Speaker 2: Like I said, up to that point, McDonald douglas was
Speaker 2: also a neck and neck competitor with Boeing, But rather
Speaker 2: than making their name as also like a great engineering
Speaker 2: firm with innovation and a mind to safety, McDonald douglas
Speaker 2: is like, no, we're just going to cut costs Yeah,
Speaker 2: Whereas Boeing, if they were going to design a new plane,
Speaker 2: or if they were going to come up with a
Speaker 2: new plane, they would start from scratch and design a
Speaker 2: new plane and probably set all the industry standards for
Speaker 2: decades to follow. What McDonald Douglas did was they would
Speaker 2: design a plane and then they would go back to
Speaker 2: it over a decade and decad decade after decade and
Speaker 2: just kind of revamp it and update. Yet that is
Speaker 2: essentially what you call clue g. It can be done,
Speaker 2: obviously because they were doing it, but it is so
Speaker 2: much worse than designing a new plane from scratch. It's
Speaker 2: just it costs a lot less and it takes a
Speaker 2: lot less time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because over those decades, over those thirty to forty years,
Speaker 1: there have been so many innovations in flight technology that, like,
Speaker 1: you could build a really great airplane from the ground
Speaker 1: up if that's what you wanted to do. We should
Speaker 1: mention that all of that. Did you name that first
Speaker 1: CEO from ninety seven, Yeah, Philip Condit, Okay, so he
Speaker 1: was the first guy. The other thing that he did,
Speaker 1: and this was a little bit later, this was I
Speaker 1: think four years after he was named CEO he he
Speaker 1: didn't split up Boeing like a breakup, but he split
Speaker 1: them up physically, and that he moved their headquarters from
Speaker 1: their longtime home in Seattle to Chicago. And he did
Speaker 1: this for allows three million bucks a year. It was
Speaker 1: sixty million dollars in state and local tax credit over
Speaker 1: a twenty year period. Three million bucks a year for
Speaker 1: a company like this is like chicken scratch.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So it was a bit of a head scratcher move
Speaker 1: because you had a company that had everything under one
Speaker 1: roof in Seattle, and now you had these Seattle based
Speaker 1: engineers working there, and you had the C suite in Chicago.
Speaker 1: And that's anytime that happens that. I mean, I know
Speaker 1: people can work remotely and stuff like that, but it
Speaker 1: seemed like a great idea to have everything there in Seattle.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And plus up to that point, with the executives
Speaker 2: and the decision makers working very closely with like the
Speaker 2: engineers and product division, those engineers knew the executives, they
Speaker 2: had a working relationship with them, so they felt comfortable
Speaker 2: saying like, I don't really think we should do that
Speaker 2: because it's going to make the plane fall out of
Speaker 2: the sky and the executives would listen, this is like
Speaker 2: they didn't know these people anymore. It just got separated.
Speaker 2: And this transition really kind of became complete when a
Speaker 2: guy named Harry Stone Cipher took over from Philip Condit
Speaker 2: in two thousand and three. He became CEO. He used
Speaker 2: to be a general electric, but he was most recently
Speaker 2: with McDonald douglas. And even though that Boeing acquired McDonald douglas,
Speaker 2: McDonald douglas influenced Boeing's culture. Boeing's culture became that same
Speaker 2: cost cutting like focus, shareholder holder verse. Yes, exactly, that
Speaker 2: kind of focus that became what Boeing adopted after guys
Speaker 2: like Kerry stone Cipher took over Boeing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he has a quote he been uh he said
Speaker 1: when people say I changed the culture of Boeing, that
Speaker 1: was the intent, so that so that it is run
Speaker 1: like a business rather than a great engineering firm. And
Speaker 1: that's one of those quotes where I was like, bro,
Speaker 1: you just said that out loud to the press, Like right,
Speaker 1: no one wants to hear that. Yeah, well, I guess
Speaker 1: shareholders did, but exactly everyone else the public at large
Speaker 1: ones safe planes that don't fall out of the sky.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he was putting a signal out, a bats
Speaker 2: signal of sort saying like, hey, investors, come invest in Boeing,
Speaker 2: We're gonna make a of course, some money for you.
Speaker 2: And they started to The next CEO is Jim McNerney,
Speaker 2: and he was the one who you can really put
Speaker 2: the most most of the blame for the design of
Speaker 2: the seven thirty seven Max from him onward. Essentially every
Speaker 2: single CEO had some sort of direct personal blame for
Speaker 2: what happened, but he was the one who was like,
Speaker 2: we need to get this plane out, We need to
Speaker 2: get it out fast, we need to cut every corner
Speaker 2: we possibly can to save time and money. Go.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So he ran the company until twenty fifteen, so
Speaker 1: he oversaws sort of all of that planning and development basically.
Speaker 1: And then after that CEO, Man, I just hate saying
Speaker 1: that CEO over and over a bad days in my mouth.
Speaker 1: The new guy's name was Dennis Muhlenberg, and he, you know,
Speaker 1: obviously inherited quite a mess after what we're about to
Speaker 1: talk about.
Speaker 2: Right, So, like I said, like these guys were saying, like,
Speaker 2: come on, we got to get going, Like Airbus is
Speaker 2: already several steps ahead, and we need to get this
Speaker 2: thing out so people can start ordering before Airbus just
Speaker 2: sucks all of the market share out of US. I
Speaker 2: saw that they put countdown clocks for different deadlines all
Speaker 2: throughout the office, in meeting rooms, conference rooms, there was
Speaker 2: constantly a clock counting down while you were at work. Yeah,
Speaker 2: engineers got the impression. And sometimes we're told directly like
Speaker 2: keep your mouth shut.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The head of the project for the seven thirty seven
Speaker 2: Max people didn't report directly to them anymore. They reported
Speaker 2: to their heads, and their heads may or may not
Speaker 2: have told that project manager about any problems that came up.
Speaker 2: So this whole rushed project also had like an aura
Speaker 2: of just keep your mouth shut, do not do anything
Speaker 2: to delay this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. And you know, as we'll see later,
Speaker 1: there were whistleblowers. But when it takes a like somebody
Speaker 1: requesting whistleblow or protection to come forward, especially with I
Speaker 1: mean in any corporation, but especially when it's something that's
Speaker 1: dealing with like public safety, that's not how it should be.
Speaker 1: You know, you should be able to to say hey,
Speaker 1: at your work, this is without fear of being of
Speaker 1: a reprisal. You know, like, we're not doing the right
Speaker 1: thing here, right.
Speaker 2: And it used to be you didn't even need to
Speaker 2: whistle blow. You would go to the executives and be like, hey,
Speaker 2: this is a real problem, this is not safe, and
Speaker 2: they would listen to you. That wasn't the case anymore.
Speaker 1: Should we take a break?
Speaker 2: Sure?
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a break and we'll come back
Speaker 1: with the design phase right after this. All right, we're back.
Speaker 1: I know we talked a little bit at first about
Speaker 1: how they decided to sort of revamp this decade's old
Speaker 1: fleet design wise, instead of starting from scratch with all
Speaker 1: this great new technology. But that's what they did. They
Speaker 1: took that seven thirty seven body, they made a lot
Speaker 1: of changes, It added bigger engines. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that was the result, and they knew this by
Speaker 1: twenty twelve, basically was that they had created a problem,
Speaker 1: a balance problem, whereas at certain speeds you could potentially
Speaker 1: go into a stall because the airplane's nose drifted upward.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because they basically took the same plane and just
Speaker 2: put giant engines that the plane was never designed for,
Speaker 2: and it just knocked it out of balance. Right, And
Speaker 2: you would say, well, why didn't they just move the wings.
Speaker 2: There was a good reason they didn't move the wings,
Speaker 2: because the more changes you make to an airplane, the
Speaker 2: more likely it is that all the pilots at all
Speaker 2: the different airlines that fly that plane are going to
Speaker 2: need updated training. Right, the FA will require it. Airlines
Speaker 2: don't like that. That's an added cost to the plane
Speaker 2: you're selling them, So they did. They bent themselves into
Speaker 2: pretzels trying to avoid making actual big changes. They just tried.
Speaker 2: They were playing whack a mole with all the problems
Speaker 2: that came up, with an eye toward not actually doing
Speaker 2: the one thing that would solved the problem, which is
Speaker 2: redesigned the wings. So what they came up with instead
Speaker 2: was some software that would take over and make the
Speaker 2: nose go back level whenever it got out of a
Speaker 2: suitable angle of attack.
Speaker 1: It's called yeah, it's called the And this is the
Speaker 1: real sort of well I was going to say the
Speaker 1: real villain, but the real villains were the humans behind
Speaker 1: this decision. But we're talking about the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation
Speaker 1: System the MCAS, and this thing, like you said, I
Speaker 1: don't know if it was clear, but it literally takes
Speaker 1: over controls of the plane and takes like supposedly takes
Speaker 1: care of the issue for the pilot instead of saying like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know, let's redesign this plane or at least train
Speaker 1: these pilots to rectify this on their own with with
Speaker 1: their hands on on the wheel. Now, what's that thing.
Speaker 2: Called the stick? I think they call it the stick?
Speaker 1: Is it the stick in big planes too? Probably, I'm
Speaker 1: pretty sure, just a larger stick. Yeah, the big on
Speaker 1: the truck, the big stick. They said, we designed this
Speaker 1: wizbang software that's going to do that for you. And
Speaker 1: when they went around to test flight mode, I think
Speaker 1: it was like twenty sixteen, the MCAS was still a
Speaker 1: pretty small part of this whole thing, but it was
Speaker 1: part of the aircraft.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And then they started testing this new design and
Speaker 2: simulators and I know, at least once, I think in
Speaker 2: twenty twelve, they the I think the head test pilot
Speaker 2: for Boeing took ten seconds to override the mcast and
Speaker 2: crashed and they were like, oh, okay, we need to
Speaker 2: keep working on this. So again they're back to playing
Speaker 2: whack a mole. Like the band aid that they put
Speaker 2: on the issue of the imbalance, which was the software
Speaker 2: now has its own so now they're fixing those, and
Speaker 2: then that would bring up more bugs and more bugs,
Speaker 2: so they had to fix those and those and those,
Speaker 2: And this was where the design for the Boeing seven
Speaker 2: thirty seven Max like really started to get out of hand.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure, because like I said, it was a
Speaker 1: pretty small part of the system at first. It had
Speaker 1: kind of that one function I think initially, or was
Speaker 1: supposed to. But by the time you're playing whack the mole,
Speaker 1: it keeps growing and growing and you're like, well, then
Speaker 1: the software will solve this problem, and then the software
Speaker 1: should solve this problem, and all of a sudden as
Speaker 1: it's interacting with these plane systems. It's a huge part
Speaker 1: of flying this plane.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and they had to integrate it with the existing software.
Speaker 2: They couldn't redo the software or the flight controls or else. Again,
Speaker 2: you have pilot training that you've just triggered, right, So
Speaker 2: they were just basically hammering this thing into place as
Speaker 2: best they could. The way that it finally worked was
Speaker 2: there were two sensors on the nose that since the
Speaker 2: angle of the plane right, and when the sensors sent
Speaker 2: information saying, hey, this plane's at way too steep of
Speaker 2: an angle, it could stall out if it goes any further.
Speaker 2: If it goes any further up, the MCAST system literally,
Speaker 2: like you said, took over the flight controls and then
Speaker 2: leveled the plane back out. Right. There was a huge
Speaker 2: issue that they made it. They designed it which still
Speaker 2: befuddles engineers aerospace engineers today, so that only one of
Speaker 2: those sensors saying the plane's angle was wrong could trigger
Speaker 2: the MCAST. Like, there was no redundancy. So if one
Speaker 2: of those sensors was faulty and the other was fine,
Speaker 2: it didn't matter. The faulty one was going to tell
Speaker 2: the MCAST to level out, even if the plane's angle
Speaker 2: wasn't actually an issue.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the whole idea there is, if one sensor
Speaker 1: goes off, you want to have that other sensor that
Speaker 1: aligns with it and says, yeah, we're getting the same
Speaker 1: readings or whatever, which is you know, it's that backup,
Speaker 1: it's that redundancy that you need. You need that matching
Speaker 1: data before that thing engages itself. So they said, you
Speaker 1: know what, we've done our calculations, and we think it's
Speaker 1: much simpler this way, and the risk of catastrophic failure
Speaker 1: is quote almost inconceivable. Yeah, I think they figured the
Speaker 1: probability was one per two hundred and twenty three trillion
Speaker 1: hours of flight. So they said, you know what, we
Speaker 1: don't need this redundancy, it's not necessary.
Speaker 2: Which is still it's just insane, like that is a
Speaker 2: basic principle. Redundancy is a basic principle of any engineering, right,
Speaker 2: And it's just I don't I still couldn't find why
Speaker 2: they made that decision, why it was so much harder
Speaker 2: for that to have the sensors have to match. It's
Speaker 2: just nuts. But as we'll see, somebody clearly forgot to
Speaker 2: carry the one because that that calculation they came up
Speaker 2: with for that probability was not yeah, correctrect So there
Speaker 2: was another thing that they did. They didn't tell anybody
Speaker 2: about the mcast.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the one that really gets me.
Speaker 2: They created this was brand new. No one had ever
Speaker 2: created something like the mcast before. It wasn't like they
Speaker 2: took an existing software and just kind of redesigned it.
Speaker 2: They made new software to do a brand new thing
Speaker 2: that hadn't been done before. And then they didn't tell
Speaker 2: anyone about it. And again, just want to reiterate, the
Speaker 2: MCAST took over the controls from the pilot. If you
Speaker 2: were the pilot, you were no longer in control of
Speaker 2: the plane while the MCAST was bringing the nose back
Speaker 2: down to a more suitable angle of attack. Imagine that
Speaker 2: happening and you having no idea what's going on because
Speaker 2: you don't know the MCAST exists.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and all of this is because they don't want
Speaker 1: to make the again, make the plane less appealing to
Speaker 1: buyers to airlines because they're gonna have to invest a
Speaker 1: lot of money in like pilot retraining and even as
Speaker 1: simple things as like you know, flight manuals and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, supposedly, I mean, it was reported at
Speaker 1: least that Boeing made a deal with Southwest Air that said, hey,
Speaker 1: if you buy enough planes from us, and if you
Speaker 1: don't require your special training for the pilots, like save
Speaker 1: yourself some money, we'll give you a discount on these planes.
Speaker 1: And Boeing lobbied the FAA, like actively lobbied them to
Speaker 1: allow them not to make any mention of the MCST
Speaker 1: in the manual, like we don't even want this in
Speaker 1: the flight manual, And the FAA said.
Speaker 2: Sure, Yeah, they said, okay, Boeing told them that it
Speaker 2: was such a minor part of an already existing system,
Speaker 2: I think the existing air speed sensor system, that it
Speaker 2: was not worth mentioning, and the FAA, like you said,
Speaker 2: they're like, sure, that's fine. They also didn't even put
Speaker 2: an indicator light for it in there. That's how secret
Speaker 2: they kept this thing, so you would have no idea
Speaker 2: it was on right, So this was like that was
Speaker 2: you might be stunned that the FAA just went along
Speaker 2: with that. It also shows you that they didn't They
Speaker 2: had no idea what the m cast was. They didn't
Speaker 2: go and look and say, well, let us see if
Speaker 2: it's actually important or not tell us what this thing is.
Speaker 2: Later on, FAA officials, some of them would testify they
Speaker 2: didn't get the mcast, they didn't understand what it was,
Speaker 2: and they really were encouraged not to ask too many questions,
Speaker 2: so they just said, sure, if you guys don't think
Speaker 2: that it's worth mentioning, we won't make you.
Speaker 1: Yeah for sure, and you know this is all you know,
Speaker 1: how I mentioned the beginning part of the systemic failures
Speaker 1: of just how things work, So we should talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about that. As far as the FAA is concerned,
Speaker 1: because when they were formed in nineteen fifty eight, it
Speaker 1: was pretty clear right out of the gate that their
Speaker 1: kind of co mandates could often be in conflict with
Speaker 1: one another, which was to promote the interest of the
Speaker 1: aviation industry and very important to promote the safety of
Speaker 1: the flying public. So they knew pretty quickly that like
Speaker 1: those like I said, those don't always align. So Congress
Speaker 1: in I think nineteen sixty seven said, all right, maybe
Speaker 1: we should have a new agency that really guides the
Speaker 1: safety side. So they created National Transportation Safety Board, and
Speaker 1: they're like, they'll they'll keep everybody safe and recommend regulations
Speaker 1: to the FAA to enforce, but they can't demand that.
Speaker 1: The FAA has never had to do the things that
Speaker 1: they're suggested to do.
Speaker 2: Right, it's just the NTSB is looking out for the
Speaker 2: safety but the FAA doesn't have to enact it because
Speaker 2: again that might conflict with the interests of the aviation industry.
Speaker 2: And that stuck out to me, Chuck, that the safety
Speaker 2: of the flying public isn't always in the interests of
Speaker 2: the aviation industry. It should one hundred percent of the
Speaker 2: time be in the interests of the aviation industry. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's just my take, hot take.
Speaker 1: But what ended up happening was the FAA said, all right, well,
Speaker 1: you know, we're good at the industry stuff, so why
Speaker 1: don't we just let Boeing, like they know planes, why
Speaker 1: don't we let them handle their own certification process. And
Speaker 1: it wasn't. I mean, that seems to be sort of
Speaker 1: standard practice. It wasn't like some big exception was made, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. No, they have a name for it, organizational designation authorization.
Speaker 2: The FAA can say, like you just said, you know
Speaker 2: a lot about what we want and what we require.
Speaker 2: We're just going to let you go through and verify
Speaker 2: that all this stuff adheres to FAA requirements and guidelines,
Speaker 2: and then you come back and tell us if it does.
Speaker 2: You plane maker, certify your own plane and tell us
Speaker 2: if we should certify it in turn. And that's exactly
Speaker 2: what it is. That's that process.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're like, hey, here's what you do. Just do
Speaker 1: it all, then send me an email that just says
Speaker 1: all good.
Speaker 2: Right, write an email to the president, but like it's
Speaker 2: from me, and then I'll sign it.
Speaker 1: So this is part of a bigger problem that actually
Speaker 1: has a name. It's called regulatory capture, and it's this
Speaker 1: idea that when people are working closely together, like the
Speaker 1: FAA works closely with the airline industry and Boeing, that
Speaker 1: they know, they know these people, and they end up
Speaker 1: I don't want to necessarily say sighting, but they end
Speaker 1: up more sympathetic to the industry side than the public
Speaker 1: that they're supposed to be protecting because they don't work
Speaker 1: with the public at large every day. They work with
Speaker 1: these people every day exactly.
Speaker 2: That's the same reason why you should avoid ever agreeing
Speaker 2: to mediation instead of a lawsuit, because the mediators typically,
Speaker 2: even though they won't say they do, they will typically
Speaker 2: work for the people paying them, and the chances of
Speaker 2: your company that say you're going into mediation with hiring
Speaker 2: them again are far greater than you ever hiring them.
Speaker 2: It's not exactly the same thing, but it's they have
Speaker 2: a working relationship that just can't be avoided, and that
Speaker 2: also is supported by another issue called the revolving door.
Speaker 2: Regulatory capture is very much supported by the revolving door
Speaker 2: and vice versa, which is you are a friendly regulated
Speaker 2: and the company you're regulating later on is like, hey,
Speaker 2: we want to hire you. We think you've done a
Speaker 2: great job, and we want you to come work for
Speaker 2: us for gobs of money. And it can go the
Speaker 2: other way too. A friendly colleague can go become a regulator,
Speaker 2: and you know, you just kind of expect them to
Speaker 2: turn a blind eye when you need them to. That's
Speaker 2: just a huge problem, especially when you're talking about huge
Speaker 2: like life and death stuff like designing and certifying airplanes
Speaker 2: or you know, pharmaceutical makers and the FDA. They're frequently
Speaker 2: talked about as regulatory capture and a revolving door.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I mean, I'm just a dummy podcaster, so I
Speaker 1: don't know how any of this stuff works. But it
Speaker 1: seems to me like there should be like a rule
Speaker 1: or a law that says, you know, choose your path,
Speaker 1: Like you can't go work for the FAA for ten
Speaker 1: years and then go work for Boeing right after that
Speaker 1: with some plumb job or some pharmaceutical company and then
Speaker 1: you go work for the FDA. Like it's just such
Speaker 1: an obvious conflict, you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't remember if you and I recorded the
Speaker 2: episode on it or not. I feel like we did
Speaker 2: years back. I definitely wrote an article about this, and
Speaker 2: people have proposed that over the years. I think three
Speaker 2: years is typically the average, which makes sense, Like a
Speaker 2: lot of people change at a company in three years,
Speaker 2: so that would probably actually do it. But it's just
Speaker 2: like just added to the pile of problems that we
Speaker 2: have to solve to get things on track around here.
Speaker 1: I propose we take a sort of a quicker break
Speaker 1: here than we normally would because we've got the crashes
Speaker 1: coming up. And after that, it's you know, what do
Speaker 1: you think?
Speaker 2: I agree?
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm not quite sure. I was trying to say there,
Speaker 1: but still, we'll be right back and we'll talk about
Speaker 1: what happened with these planes right after this.
Speaker 2: Okay, chuck, So we're back, and we're gonna go back
Speaker 2: to March twenty seventeen, and I guess this month is
Speaker 2: when the FAA certified the seven thirty seven Max eight
Speaker 2: to fly. A few months later, the Max nine was
Speaker 2: certified to fly, and both of these planes, I think
Speaker 2: they were the first seven thirty seven Maxes to hit
Speaker 2: the skies. And one thing you want to point out
Speaker 2: is when the FAA certifies a new plane to fly,
Speaker 2: they and the European the EU Aviation Authority they're basically
Speaker 2: their stamps tell the rest of the world like, these
Speaker 2: planes are fine, you can buy them and fly them,
Speaker 2: you can put them into your airline fleet. Other countries
Speaker 2: have their own aviation authority, sure, but they do not
Speaker 2: have the resources that like the FAA or the EU's
Speaker 2: Aviation Authority have, and so they're relied upon, Like their
Speaker 2: credibility is important worldwide. So this is why. One reason
Speaker 2: also it was such a big deal that the fa
Speaker 2: just completely fell down on the job.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they're supposed to be the gold standards worldwide,
Speaker 1: like you said.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: On October twenty ninth, twenty eighteen, Lion Air flight it
Speaker 1: was the seven thirty seven Max eight crashed into the
Speaker 1: Java Sea very shortly after takeoff from Indonesia, and the
Speaker 1: flight crew communicated with air traffic control that basically they
Speaker 1: were having trouble with flight control, they were having trouble
Speaker 1: with their altitude, and then the plane just disappears from radar,
Speaker 1: and I think it was about thirteen minutes later it
Speaker 1: plunged into the Java See at about four hundred miles
Speaker 1: an hour and killed all one hundred and eighty nine
Speaker 1: people on board.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, and all of this was I think, like
Speaker 2: you said, thirteen minutes after the plane took off. So
Speaker 2: that angle of attack thing. We know enough now to
Speaker 2: know what was going on. At the time, no one
Speaker 2: had any idea what was going on, and so Boeing said, oh,
Speaker 2: there's this thing called the mcast that we put in.
Speaker 2: Just here's some information about it, and if anything like
Speaker 2: this ever happens to you, here's the procedure to override
Speaker 2: it and you'll be all good. Just it was still
Speaker 2: it was pilot error, everybody. That's that's what the problem was.
Speaker 2: That's what Boeing blamed it on.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so that was crash number one. Then, I guess
Speaker 1: about five months later, in March of twenty nineteen, an
Speaker 1: Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed near at Geer, Ethiopia. This was
Speaker 1: six minutes after takeoff, and all one hundred and fifty
Speaker 1: seven passengers and crew obviously on board, died.
Speaker 2: And that what made that crash even worse, Chuck, is
Speaker 2: that those airline pilots followed that procedure that Boeing had
Speaker 2: told the world about after the Lion airflight a few
Speaker 2: months before, and it still didn't work because there was
Speaker 2: a software glitch with the mcass and it kept reactivating
Speaker 2: and reactivating and they couldn't override it, and that's when
Speaker 2: it crashed. So even with this workaround that Boeing came
Speaker 2: up with, it still wasn't fixing the problem. And after
Speaker 2: that second crash, it was quite clear that Boeing had
Speaker 2: screwed up royally, and also that the FAA had let
Speaker 2: them do that and still certified these planes that were
Speaker 2: way too dangerous to carry human beings.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the whole seven thirty seven Max fleet was grounded
Speaker 1: at that point for twenty months. It was the biggest
Speaker 1: sort of grounding like that in aviation history. It took
Speaker 1: out four hundred and fifty planes from the sky, and
Speaker 1: you know, its sindrils ran all throughout the airline industry,
Speaker 1: like travel stock prices, obviously Southwest. You know I mentioned
Speaker 1: like supposedly having that better deal, they had to ground
Speaker 1: I think thirty of their fifty eight plane stop.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Fleet, fleet, that's the word, the fleet with the sticks,
Speaker 1: that's right. I mean, it's clear I'm not an aviator,
Speaker 1: you guys. I'm sure that's not a surprise to anyone,
Speaker 1: but governing bodies really kind of came in quickly. After
Speaker 1: that point, they launched investigations not just into Boeing but
Speaker 1: also into the FAA. And you know, they did the
Speaker 1: thing you do, which you start issuing statements like that
Speaker 1: are really angry, and then there are press releases and
Speaker 1: there are denials, and then CEOs come and go. Obviously,
Speaker 1: lawsuits and at least one criminal charge would come and
Speaker 1: regulatory actions. But while this is going on, there's still
Speaker 1: like problems with this plane.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the reason they grounded all seven thirty seven
Speaker 2: max is everywhere in the world for twenty months. It
Speaker 2: was supposed to be a very short time, but it
Speaker 2: turned out to be twenty months is because these were
Speaker 2: brand new planes that dropped out of the sky. Remember
Speaker 2: that one in two hundred and thirty two trillion chants
Speaker 2: of the function, this is two. Yeah. The the Lion
Speaker 2: air plane had eight hundred hours of flight time. The
Speaker 2: Ethiopian air had just thirteen hundred and thirty hours. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so this happened two times in just twenty one hundred
Speaker 2: and thirty flight hours.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Boy, there's some some Josh Clark matth in there that
Speaker 2: we just edited out, chuck, right.
Speaker 1: So in October twenty eighteen, this is a year after
Speaker 1: that Lion Air crash, the CEO of who I mentioned
Speaker 1: earlier at the time, Dennis Muhlenberg, was called before Congress,
Speaker 1: which is what you do. You got to take your
Speaker 1: lumps and go in there and get yelled at, basically,
Speaker 1: and the whole time he's insisting the plane is safe
Speaker 1: and in that hearing and I remember watching some of
Speaker 1: this stuff. Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal said after that second crash,
Speaker 1: he met with Boeing reps in his office and they
Speaker 1: said what Josh Clark would say one day is that
Speaker 1: it was pilot air, which like, that's just complete fabrication.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean they yeah, it's just so scummy, you know,
Speaker 2: to be that responsible for the deaths of hundreds of people,
Speaker 2: terrible deaths, and then just to blame two people who
Speaker 2: are for people I guess who are blameless, and that's
Speaker 2: just I just think that's terrible. And you might say, well, okay,
Speaker 2: what's wrong with Muhlenberg. He was the one who inherited
Speaker 2: the problem. He's to blame because he didn't ground that
Speaker 2: the seven thirty seven maxes. The FAA made Boeing do that,
Speaker 2: so he had the option to do this. He had
Speaker 2: the opportunity to and he didn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for sure. You know, obviously the FAA, we've been
Speaker 1: pretty hard on here, and they were found responsible for
Speaker 1: good reason. There was a twenty twenty congressional report that
Speaker 1: said Boeing in the FAA jointly were responsible for these
Speaker 1: two plane crashes. And the FAA this whole time is
Speaker 1: insisting that it did the right thing. It's like, we,
Speaker 1: you know, did everything like we were supposed to as
Speaker 1: far as certification goes, but it seems to be a
Speaker 1: systemic thing where and stepped forward before this and said,
Speaker 1: you can't allow them to certify themselves because they may
Speaker 1: have been telling the truth when they said they follow
Speaker 1: a procedure, but the procedure was wrong exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So when that report came out, the shares of
Speaker 2: bow of Boeing plummeted as far as fines go and
Speaker 2: actual money that they had to shell out from this. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that FA fined Boeing seventeen million dollars in twenty twenty one,
Speaker 2: seventeen million with an m yeah, for using unapproved or
Speaker 2: non conforming parts or mislabeling the parts. Neither of these
Speaker 2: those things had anything to do with the crashes. So
Speaker 2: Boeing was never fined for those two crashes by the FAA.
Speaker 1: Yeah, was that just them trying to be like, hey,
Speaker 1: let's slap them with something so the public sees that
Speaker 1: had like that's.
Speaker 2: My interpretation, Yes, And that's the the little pussy cat
Speaker 2: bite that they came up with, right, Is that a thing?
Speaker 1: Wow? Sure.
Speaker 2: The other thing is is the FAA didn't start issuing
Speaker 2: penalties like that until the Justice Department filed suit against
Speaker 2: Boeing for defrauding the United States government by saying this
Speaker 2: thing is fine, you can go ahead and certify at FAA.
Speaker 2: And there was actually a criminal misconduct facet to the
Speaker 2: whole thing as well. And I think Boeing negotiated a
Speaker 2: two point five billion dollar payment are fine to the
Speaker 2: United States to basically say like, just here, make this
Speaker 2: go away. Here's some money. They also had to pay
Speaker 2: eight point three billion dollars to the airlines and then
Speaker 2: man the victims families all I think three hundred and
Speaker 2: forty five victims families. There was one hundred million dollar
Speaker 2: pot set aside for them as part of this negotiated
Speaker 2: agreement with the Justice Department. That's the thing that I
Speaker 2: saw though. When I was looking that up, chuck on
Speaker 2: like like a Google search or whatever. Yeah, the reporting
Speaker 2: on it said that Boeing is dedicating one hundred million
Speaker 2: dollars to victims. Families Almost across the board, all of
Speaker 2: the rere like they weren't forced to. It's disgusting because
Speaker 2: it also shows that all of these outlets were basically
Speaker 2: just copying the Boeing press release.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, for sure, you did mention a criminal charge.
Speaker 1: There was one. There was one individual that faced criminal charges.
Speaker 1: It was a former lead technical pilot named Mark Forlkner,
Speaker 1: and he is the guy who convinced the FAA that
Speaker 1: the MCST was not something worthy of including in the
Speaker 1: flight manual. I think it was exposed later on in
Speaker 1: internal emails. He was frustrated about mcast in the email
Speaker 1: and he said, quote I basically lied to the FAA
Speaker 1: end quote. And he was found not guilty of defrauding
Speaker 1: federal regulators. And that was that was the only person
Speaker 1: to be brought up on criminal charges.
Speaker 2: Yeah. After that, the JAY said, Okay, we're closing this case.
Speaker 2: It's done. As you can imagine, the families of the
Speaker 2: victims were not at all happy with any of this. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so the whole thing put to rest. Everybody's moving on.
Speaker 2: This is what was that twenty twenty one, I think
Speaker 2: when that whole thing got settled. Yeah, And then three
Speaker 2: years later, less than three years later, there was another
Speaker 2: catastrophic incident with another Boeing seven thirty seven Max.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And I remember when this one happened, after all
Speaker 1: the other stuff, it was just like what is because
Speaker 1: I mean, I feel like there was this weird certain
Speaker 1: amount of national pride with Boeing even at one point,
Speaker 1: like I remember growing up hearing about like Boeing, like
Speaker 1: this great company of engineers, like these brilliant people. And
Speaker 1: then by the time this happened in twenty twenty four,
Speaker 1: I'm not even in like a plane head, and I
Speaker 1: was like, what is happening with this like once great company?
Speaker 1: And that's when Alaska Airlines flight depressurized rapidly at sixteen
Speaker 1: thousand feet because a door plug blew out and there
Speaker 1: was a hole in the side of the plane.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Door plug is essentially a panel that covers an
Speaker 2: unused emergency exit, and that panel came off, blew off,
Speaker 2: and just by total luck or the grace of God,
Speaker 2: depending on your view, of what's going on behind the universe.
Speaker 2: There was nobody seated right there. Yeah, And the reason
Speaker 2: why this was lucky is because parts of the seats
Speaker 2: were sucked out, and there would be a good chance
Speaker 2: that a human sitting in one of those seats would
Speaker 2: have been sucked out. At sixteen thousand feet, it's mind
Speaker 2: boggling that nobody was killed or I think seriously injured.
Speaker 2: Even than that. It's just it was it could have
Speaker 2: been so bad and lucky for Boeing it wasn't.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Initial reports intigated that they couldn't find the bolts
Speaker 1: that were to hold that plug in place, and then
Speaker 1: apparently there were signs that they never maybe there were
Speaker 1: never bolts in place to begin with, and that a
Speaker 1: Boeing worker removed that door plug for some routine maintenance
Speaker 1: didn't put the bolts back in. At this point, the
Speaker 1: FAA is like, all right, this can't you know? This
Speaker 1: is such a public thing. After the disaster of the
Speaker 1: two crashes, they grounded the planes again. They said, quote,
Speaker 1: this should never have happened and it cannot happen again.
Speaker 1: And when they did follow up investigations, it, I mean,
Speaker 1: it seemed kind of like a clown show going on
Speaker 1: at Spirit Aero Systems that like the factory where these
Speaker 1: things were being put together.
Speaker 2: One of their suppliers, Yeah, this was not good a
Speaker 2: good look. There were assemblers who were in charge of
Speaker 2: putting plane stuff together. They were jump up and down
Speaker 2: on airplane parts and like kick it into place to
Speaker 2: make the drill holes line up the way that they
Speaker 2: should a part like that for something like an airplane,
Speaker 2: and the Boeing of yesteryear would have immediately been sent
Speaker 2: back and supplier would have been sweating that they were
Speaker 2: going to get dropped for somebody else. That's not the case,
Speaker 2: or that certainly wasn't the case with their vendor. Spirit.
Speaker 2: There were other problems that also came up with the
Speaker 2: Max too that were didn't even have anything to do
Speaker 2: with the mcast, but were still both potentially catastrophic themselves.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there was an air pressure sensor that seems pretty
Speaker 1: vital to me as a nonpilot that would ensure that
Speaker 1: pilots had enough air to not lose consciousness. I guess
Speaker 1: in the event of something better, it.
Speaker 2: Should be important to you as a passenger.
Speaker 1: Too, Yeah, it is. They also found loose bolts in
Speaker 1: the rudder system. And by this point, like it's pretty
Speaker 1: obvious that the FAA was complicit and this whole sort
Speaker 1: of shoddy operation going down with the seven thirty seven Max.
Speaker 1: They were non compliant with FAA regulations. And if the
Speaker 1: FAA's saying they don't know about that, then that's on there.
Speaker 2: There was no argument or justification that FAA could put
Speaker 2: forward that exonerated them in even a little bit, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And here's the thing. Before that door plug blew out,
Speaker 1: just before that, the FAA had gone to Congress and said, hey,
Speaker 1: I think it's all good now, can we go back
Speaker 1: to letting Boeing certify their own planes? And then after
Speaker 1: that door blowout they or plug blowout, they withdrew that request.
Speaker 2: And this is the last CEO, Dave Calhoun. The reason
Speaker 2: he was a problem or an issue as well is
Speaker 2: because he didn't change Boeing enough for this door plug
Speaker 2: incident to not happen. So there was there were two
Speaker 2: high profile whistleblower deaths. Thirty two people came forward to
Speaker 2: seek whistleblower federal protection to complain against Boeing. Two of
Speaker 2: them died, and it turns out both of them died well,
Speaker 2: one died by suicide, another one died of MRSA, so
Speaker 2: I guess natural disease. But the guy who died by suicide,
Speaker 2: of course, there was a conspiracy theory that he was
Speaker 2: actually murraid. He had just given a deposition in Charleston
Speaker 2: when he was found dead of a gunshot wound in
Speaker 2: his truck in a holiday in parking lot where he
Speaker 2: was staying after giving that deposition. And apparently there's all
Speaker 2: sorts of evidence, including CCTV or security camera footage that
Speaker 2: show that this was suicide. The point is that doesn't
Speaker 2: exonerate Boeing in his suicide note, he actually named Boeing
Speaker 2: as a huge reason for this, because they ruined his life.
Speaker 1: He said, yeah, he requested to be buried face down
Speaker 1: so they could quote kiss his ass.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: So uh yeah, it very very sad obviously. So they
Speaker 1: are identifying all these issues with the seven thirty seven MAX.
Speaker 1: The most scathing stuff obviously would come from the NTSB
Speaker 1: because their separate from the AAA, and they basically have
Speaker 1: taken to bypassing the FAA by issuing their own safety
Speaker 1: notices directly and not like going through them. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: I think in June twenty twenty five. Just last year,
Speaker 1: they issued a bulletin of a possible engine problem on
Speaker 1: the seven thirty seven Max.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, I feel like airlines should should alert you.
Speaker 2: I know they're not going to, but I feel like
Speaker 2: they should give you a choice, like this is a
Speaker 2: seven thirty seven Max.
Speaker 1: Well you can see what plane it is like when
Speaker 1: you book the flight.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that they switch them sometimes too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm gonna start looking though, man, after this, Oh.
Speaker 2: I do, I do. I don't think I've ever been
Speaker 2: on board a Max, but I feel like it's just
Speaker 2: the roll of the dice every time, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, yeah, It's something I'm paying a lot
Speaker 1: more attention to now. Obviously.
Speaker 2: We also can't not mention another thing that happened after
Speaker 2: the Alaska Airline blowout that had nothing to do with
Speaker 2: their airline division or airplane division, but still was Boeing
Speaker 2: and it was a terrible look. It was an aerospace thing.
Speaker 2: When the star Liner test flight to the ISS did
Speaker 2: not go very well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they, I mean, there were a lot of failures there.
Speaker 1: We're not going to get into all of them, but
Speaker 1: it was a test flight carrying a couple of astronauts
Speaker 1: to the ISS and they ended up stuck there. I
Speaker 1: think it was supposed to be a little more than
Speaker 1: a week and it turned into nine months and SpaceX
Speaker 1: had to go get them.
Speaker 2: It's just not a good look, right, it's not. I mean,
Speaker 2: luckily Wilmore and Williams, the two astronauts made it back
Speaker 2: to Earth safely, and the star Liner uncrude remotely controlled
Speaker 2: made it back to Earth safely. But still it's just
Speaker 2: like your stock price goes down every time. And the
Speaker 2: reason I mentioned it is because every step of the
Speaker 2: way with the seven thirty seven Max, all of it
Speaker 2: followed that like psychopathic corporate logic, where the shareholder's return
Speaker 2: on investment is the most important thing. It is more
Speaker 2: important in morality, safety, practicality, sensibility, anything, right. And so
Speaker 2: the whole like sad trombone like twist, I guess is
Speaker 2: that the seven thirty seven Max cost Boeing investors eighty
Speaker 2: seven billion dollars right over the six years from twenty
Speaker 2: eighteen to twenty twenty four. It didn't make them money.
Speaker 2: It cost them money in share price drops over and
Speaker 2: over and over again, because one thing after another just
Speaker 2: kept going and Airbus was eating Boeing's lunch all of
Speaker 2: these years too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's a I mean there's a lesson in there.
Speaker 1: No one will heat it, of course, but there's a lesson.
Speaker 2: Yes there is, Chuck, You got anything else?
Speaker 1: I got nothing else. I mean, they're they're still out there, right,
Speaker 1: the seven thirty seven Max.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they got recertified by the FAA. I think the
Speaker 2: last one was towed out of groundage. I don't know
Speaker 2: if that's the word or not the union saying. And
Speaker 2: it was declared ready for delivery to China on August
Speaker 2: twenty ninth, twenty twenty five. So there is a very
Speaker 2: good chance that you will fly on a seven thirty
Speaker 2: seven Max at some point in your life if you
Speaker 2: fly a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Oh, and also just real quick, they also have the
Speaker 2: Max seven and the Max nine are the newest ones,
Speaker 2: and they're having trouble getting those certified because they're having
Speaker 2: an issue that they are can't figure out how to
Speaker 2: fix yet. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Software is a great thing. So I'm not bagging on
Speaker 1: the software industry, but like, I have a car that
Speaker 1: has like a lot of newer cars are like very
Speaker 1: software based, as a lot of people know. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: sometimes it'll just do something.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we had our brick once.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it happens. I've seen it happen in my own car,
Speaker 1: and like, that's not a plane with hundreds of passengers,
Speaker 1: you know, No.
Speaker 2: No, thankfully we were parked and couldn't get it back on.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I can't imagine how terrifying that would be
Speaker 2: if if it happened while you were driving, you know. Yeah,
Speaker 2: we should also say talking about software, it was widely
Speaker 2: reported that Boeing had hired had outsourced their software coding
Speaker 2: to Indian companies to curry favor with India so they
Speaker 2: could sell more jets there. That's true. I think they
Speaker 2: were recent college graduates who were being paid nine dollars
Speaker 2: an hour, who were entrusted with very important software stuff.
Speaker 2: But none of them worked on the mcast, right, which
Speaker 2: was the thing that caused those two crashes.
Speaker 1: Obvious, that's right.
Speaker 2: I think that's it for the seven thirty seven. Max.
Speaker 2: I got to dedicate this one to my dad because
Speaker 2: he's the one who gave me my interest in engineering,
Speaker 2: because he was an engineer.
Speaker 1: All these yehes, I knew that that's great.
Speaker 2: Well, since Chuck said that was great that I just
Speaker 2: dedicated this episode to my dad as foretold in two
Speaker 2: thousand and eight. We just opened listener mail here in
Speaker 2: twenty twenty six.
Speaker 1: All right, this is from Alexa from Seattle. It's a
Speaker 1: short and suitet. Hey, guys, just wanted to add to
Speaker 1: the topic of the cherry blossom trees. And I remember
Speaker 1: when we recorded this, I was like, I know, there's
Speaker 1: some places that are known for their cherry blossoms that
Speaker 1: were not going to mention, and luckily Alexa wrote in
Speaker 1: Seattle loves their cherry blossoms, guys. The quad at you
Speaker 1: Dub is probably the most popular spot for cherry blossom viewing,
Speaker 1: and it's always packed with people. All over the city.
Speaker 1: You'll find cherry blossoms blooming and events themed around the
Speaker 1: cherry blossoms, including food items and anime conventions. Nice cherry
Speaker 1: blossoms bloom in the spring when we get random breaks
Speaker 1: from the bleak winter weather, and it's absolutely beautiful. And Alexa,
Speaker 1: I can confirm, but I think my first two trips
Speaker 1: to Seattle were in spring and I got like the
Speaker 1: best weather, and I think I saw cherry blossoms and
Speaker 1: I was like, what's the deal with this place being gloomy?
Speaker 1: Like this place is incredible.
Speaker 2: I remember that too. I think we've done at least five,
Speaker 2: maybe six shows there over the years, and this past
Speaker 2: one in January was the first time I ever rained
Speaker 2: while I was in Seattle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got big time seatle on this last trip
Speaker 1: we did.
Speaker 2: We did that was smart to choose a Seattle one
Speaker 2: because that's where Boeing's from, so that fits this one
Speaker 2: very nicely.
Speaker 1: Fantastic.
Speaker 2: That was from Alexa. That's right, Alexa, send email no thanks, Alexa,
Speaker 2: Oh my god. If you want to be like if
Speaker 2: you want to be like Alexa and send us an
Speaker 2: email and have us thank you like you're a robot,
Speaker 2: we will do that. All you have to do is
Speaker 2: send your email off to stuff podcast at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 1: Stuff you Should Know is a production of iHeartRadio. For
Speaker 1: more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.