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REVIEW: Flying Blind, by Peter Robison - by John Psmith

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Such a frustrating book! Such a missed opportunity! The premise is great: “how a subtle change in corporate culture led inexorably to planes falling out of the sky and the deaths of 346 people.” Alas, the execution is not there, and it becomes increasingly clear as you read this that Peter Robison has no idea how to trace the chain of causality. So he panics, flounders, falls back on the hoariest and most shopworn investigative journalist clichés ([gasp] “did you know there was regulatory capture?” Buddy, when is there not regulatory capture?). It’s very sad, because he’s done his homework and interviewed a bazillion people, and because now that he’s ruined this topic nobody else is going to get a publisher’s advance to write this book the way it should have been done. Well, can we do better? Let’s start where Robison does, at the beginning. Boeing was once a young startup, founded by the eccentric heir to a timber fortune. Through a mixture of luck, derring-do, and frequent cash injec

REVIEW: Flying Blind, by Peter Robison John Psmith Feb 06, 2023 81 9 4 Share Flying Blind: The 737 MAX and the Fall of Boeing , Peter Robison (Doubleday, 2021). Such a frustrating book! Such a missed opportunity! The premise is great: “how a subtle change in corporate culture led inexorably to planes falling out of the sky and the deaths of 346 people.” Alas, the execution is not there, and it becomes increasingly clear as you read this that Peter Robison has no idea how to trace the chain of causality. So he panics, flounders, falls back on the hoariest and most shopworn investigative journal

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