Boeing secures $12 billion financial lifeline

I wonder if Boeing will speak up after the Ethiopian investigation’s final report is issued, circa mid-March, I expect. For some reason one year after the accident seems to have become the de facto minimum for the release of the investigation’s final report. Anyway, the ICAO needs to re-examine the usefulness and harm caused by its restrictions on the participants of an investigation—Boeing has been under a gag order since Oct 28, 2018 and it’s inability to defend itself against rampant misbehavior by the press is ludicrous. Besides, not all participants in the investigations have maintained the silence required by the conventions of annex 13, so the issue of fairness and the ICAO’s willingness and ability to enforce its conventions certainly should be examined.

Additionally, none of the civil aviation agencies worldwide that unilaterally grounded the MAX gave a valid technical reason for doing so, FAA included, even though such is required by the ICAO. Does anyone know the specific technical reason(s) for grounding the MAX and maintaining that status for so long? I mean other than the speculative rubbish published by some of the news media and regurgitated as fact by the rest. Although a precautionary grounding due to lack of knowledge—ending when more analysis could definitively indicate whether grounding was justified or not—was a reasonable approach, no such verdict was given by anyone except the media.

The data from the Lion Air‘s recorders, as contained in the reports by the investigators, doesn’t support most of the media’s reports (speculation) of events on the flight deck, their explanation of the workings and interactions of systems, the actions of the pilots or the cause of the crash. The data doesn’t even support the NTSB’s analysis—which seems to be derived from media reports rather than from looking at what really happened on the airplane! Instead the data seems to indicate there was no technical reason for the grounding. Maybe that’s why the FAA kept saying there was “no schedule”... to release the airplane they’d have to sign a heap of paperwork showing in great technical detail how the reasons for the grounding have been fixed. Can’t wait to see what fiction they’ve drummed up to enable a now earlier-than-Boeing-predicted release date, though I can’t imagine an engineer staking his reputation by signing his name on silliness the FAA came up with, like the carefully choreographed flipping of bits in a status byte by “cosmic rays” especially since that wasn’t the likely cause of the crash (applying Occam’s Razor) and this paperwork will be scrutinized worldwide with an intensity never seen before.

That’s a lot of debt. Big money to fix big problems

wonder what the new break-even point will be, for numbers of 737 max and 777x aircraft to make up for the as yet uncalculated payments to 737 max customers? 12 billion is a start, but no where near the totals yet to be determined. And still the former ceo/chairman of the board waltzed away with what- 64 million? How could he negotiate for that figure with the board- what leveredge did he have then?

Saw it coming soon as the second crash coming. Not cool at all. Hopefully they get the Max problem dealt with sooner rather than later.

You can buy 25 triple 7 X's for that !

Boeing has no issue getting these loans, the banks know Boeing will repay, especially once their cash flow and balance sheets start looking better with the MAX back in the air and delivering again.