Business | Wings of change

Can anyone pull Boeing out of its nosedive?

The American planemaker needs one hell of a pilot

Boeing airplanes stand in various stages of maintenance outside the Boeing Renton Factory in Renton.
We’re hiringPhotograph: Alamy

Few companies have had a worse start to the year than Boeing. In January a panel masking an unused emergency exit blew out of a 737 MAX over Oregon. Thankfully the plane landed safely. A preliminary probe into the near-disaster concluded that the bolts that should keep the panel in place were missing. The incident prompted internal investigations and brought federal regulators to Boeing’s factories to audit manufacturing processes. If that were not enough, on April 16th a whistleblower claimed that unacknowledged defects with 787 Dreamliners were symptomatic of a firm with “no safety culture”.

Chart: The Economist

This article appeared in the Business section of the print edition under the headline "Wings of change"

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