The Museum of Flight in Seattle is a terrific museum and well worth anyone’s time. When I visited (well before the MAX disasters), it made a big thing about Boeing being a company led by engineers who would never do anything that put passengers and crews at risk.
One exhibit was of a film Boeing made showing a test with an axe proving that the fuselage of the 707 was much stronger than that of the DeHavilland Comet which had beaten it into service - only to suffer a series of catastrophic in-flight decompressions.
I wonder how many descriptions have had to be changed following the uncovering of so many compromises with the 737 MAX and the failures of the East Coast plant where tankers and 787s have been leaving the production line with serious defects.
Because it is the only civilian airliner builder in America, and because of its deep tentacles in defence and space, there’s no way any US government will ever let Boeing fold or be taken over by a foreign company - but dear lord the company needs to be shaken up. You’d have thought the fact Airbus has eaten so much of their market would have convinced them to change tack - but apparently not - maybe it will be when COMAC starts mass production of the C919 and they see their Chinese market begin to disappear?
