joining lunenburg in 1995 and the london correspondent bureau chief in a feature writer for bloomberg "businessweek." he won the knock on forbes award in business award for the society for stance business writing. soa native of st. paul minnesota he lived in seattle with his wife and two children. a former math teacher a country which are t to "forbes" magazine and a pulitzer prize winner for the seattle times. he said the state since 2003. they are here to discuss peters book "flying blind" the 737 max tragedy and the fall of boeing. pleaseoi join me me in welcoming sub 13 and peter robison. [applause] -- dominic gates and peter

robison. [applause] >> thank you. first of all thank you all for coming. i am sub 13 and this is a bit teen and before i start throwing questions out. me say a few things about the book. i'd like to begin by talking about the subtitle of the book in the fall of knowing and recalling the great legacy and what it means to this region and to the world. boeing gave the region all the blue-collar jobs and all the advance to engineering work that was world class. he was here for 100 years and generations of families had

grown up with owing. boeing and it gave the world an iconic jetliner like the 747. so this is a company that has given the world a great deal. now the fall began with the two crashes of the macs in 2018 and 2019. and since then it seems like nothing has gone right for boeing and everything that could go wrong has gone wrong. and obviously the pandemic has really hit the airline industry and boeing but their manufacturing problems and

delivered 14787's and last year. they were delivering 14 a month. so it's definitely one of the low points in boeing's history. the question that this books sets out to answer does peter wrote how did the company that prided itself on its engineering products and perfection and -- perfectionism in its dna go so wildly off course? that's the question he says that dancer and i have to say i think this is a great look and it will become the go-to book for boeing. what i find, i'd like to mention three things impressive about it. first of all he really nailed the cultural shift in what's

happened to boeing over the last few decades in the theater were talked to boeing people and i'm sure there are some here you've often heard the merger with mcdonnell douglas rent everything and were in the culture. that's perhaps too easy of a conclusion that there were lots of exclusive interviews that maps out this cultural shift incredibly well and it's really worth reading for that to get a on how we got here but the other thing is he is a wonderful writer. there are so many arrestingoo sentences in the book. i'm going to read one of them and it's the one of the first directors that the faa issued one week ton after they air cra. i remember reading that. when the plane crashes very far away unfortunately it doesn't get a lot of attention here in the united states.

something like that is the usual picture and this was a new plane. still what had happened a week laterg boeing issued a bulletin by the faa. i their member reading it and saying oh -- the system that causes a nosedive if the sensor goes wrong ine, telling you what to do if that happens. for me and i'm sure every supporter in the world it's like what? boeing was telling us awa week after that there was something wrong with the plane. but the wording a bit and here's what peter wrote the faa direct it was so pedestrian on its base its neutral wording if i can iphone so paradoxically earth shattering. and i feel itt was.

i am in eyes and ears reporter and this was a big investigation we have to find out what happened here. finally before i go to questions i will say the other thing i admire about a book is its conclusion. he really very succinctly documents as always and footnoted but he's is simply says what he means. those of you who know thee boeig remember jim at ernie who is the ceo for 10 years and to really solidified this culture that was focused on the financials. before mcnerney came to boeing he was a 3m for four years. he was very famous for lots of inventions. so peter writes this in just over four years of mcnerney doubled the company's annual

profits. he did it by going straight a 3m's future. because he slashed jobs he slashed r&d spending and that increased profits but it destroyed the future of the company. so a terrific story and a terrific history great writing and conclusions. so now i'm going to give peter his chance to talk about it with a few questions and later on will come to your questions. peter seems to me a company can't move past the great tragedy like this one that killed 746 people. until for submitting what it did wrong. you think boeing has done so stop and thank you for that introduction and the high praise coming c from you and everyone c

the room knows dominic from his coverage over the last two decades really. and i will try to say what i mean as i did in the book today. the question is has boeing admitted faults? i think it depends on the audience. just m this month as you reportd they admitted faults in a court filing that they were denying the cause of the crash. they had a very hard timee admitting fault. it was the pilot didn't look at the checklist and it was maintenance. we saw later dennis moore berg in the second crash saying there was a gap. eventually there was a mealymouthed way on it and finally i'm sorry to the public.

as early as last year dave calhoun the current ceo was suggesting itt was something tht american pilots could have handled so i think the question is whether boeing has really and truly accepted fault. >> i think boeing has said the design of mcas's they feel they took into the count they are reactions of the pilot. to me it's pointing part of the blame on the pilot. one thing often and in the book youal talk about a previous generation of boeing airplanes were somebody stands up an engine or private stands up in a room when they are doing the design and somebody made a suggestion. this guy stands up and says do you want blood on the seats? and nobody did that.

when mcas was being designed we knew about the pilots pulling the wool over the faa and into saving the airline didn't didn't know them -- did let them know that mcas existed but what about the design? this tremendous engineering company where engineers in the room and pilots who were there to stand in for airline pilots at some point somebody didn't say a single center in the system? the i don't think boeing ever got that. >> it's a and it's a t reflectin of the way the checks and balances were broken down. there's a study in the book the 737 next generation where someone realized there was a fuel tank designed and he stood

up and said how much much blood t-1 odyssey covers? the over time partly because of the cost-cutting you mentioned during the mcnerney years a lot of the experienced engineers were being laid off and you had people who stood up and made the blood on the seat cover declaration and people i talk to on the max they said more sophisticated fly can judge be introduced they were semi- early shot down. >> imagine this pilot was the only one was not indicted and that was the chief technical pilot. he was indicted, his actions are clearly inexcusable. he condemns the faa not to put the system in the manual pic.

they didn't have simulator training in lion air. my question is it's one guy. is he a scapegoat and where else does the responsibility lie in your opinion? >> a clearly lies with management and it shows he is escape. there's a story i tell in the book of a series of events in october of 2019 after the second crash dennis moore berg was going to be the brought in front of congress and he'd become a the public face of this deadly blunder. it was an out month a staffer on the house transportation and infrastructure committee was getting regular releases of documents from boeing and got a

release and a call from boeing was take a look at the one on the top or the one on the top was the message where his private appeared to have already known about the potential problems with the software before the plane was delivered. during those hearings mullen berg showed some distance when he was asked about the message and ted cruz confronted the scene and ted cruz is confronting him over the messages -- messages. he said we areor quite sure what he meant really think he was talking about a simulator in development and my reporting shows he had a reason to know exactly what mr. portman was asking because mr. portman was paid by boeing's dr. of liability.

it was holding him out as a scapegoat. >> his deputy were still at boeing at the time. and there was the other guy at the other end. >> and at the time they said did you ask him and dennis mullenberg had to say no. >> decide to boeing -- besides bowing you look at document paralleling the faa in terms of the oversight that was their job. what went wrong within the faa? >> i found that story through the perspective of the faa specialist on the ground. their people talked about their manager and saying people who are skilled is found going back to the 80s and 90s. people had great feelings about

the 777 which people consider the less great airplane of sub tanden thing thing started shifting. tthis goes back to the reagan revolution and the idea that government is the problem and not the solution. agencies were starved for resources and that played out in different ways in different agencies but the faa was an embrace of this extreme delegation of authority. i interviewed lots and lots of engineers who felt that they were no longer working to hold boeing accountable and they looked at their customer ultimately is being that manufactured the goal was to help the manufactures bring the product to the market. >> end quote richard reid is an faa safety engineer at the time. do you remember what he said? >> he had a remarkable analogy. he said at the time he was

saying what was happening and he was saying that his authority was diminishing and he saw this congress which had intentionally undone the agency and he thought of himself as "forrest gump" and he was imagine what he would say if anyone called in front of congress to say why would you certify this point so quickly and he played "forrest gump." he said because he told me to congressman. >> congress did an about turn afterwards and demanded these hearings which are actually really good but you are right before the crashes under all the direction of congress was to push the faa into treating boeing as a customer. >> those were the words instead of om appliqué customer was the

preferred language for the manufacturer. >> by the way steve dixon is the faa administrator now a former delta pilot. steve dixon has appeared at several of these hearings since then. he was appointed after the second a crash. nevertheless he's been pilloried in the hearings by politicians. what do you think of dixon and his handling of things since the crashes? >> he's a former airline executive and he was trying to balance competing demands right now trying too show that he has heeded the message that the agency is performing itself. at the same time just to see her the father of one of the victims in the ethiopian crash got a note from an engineer at the faa who said that recently managersa

have been saying they can expect not much to change as the result of the rules and these managers call that quote mugging for the cameras. >> i've heard that too and that an impressed somewhat with some of the changes we have seen publicly. you know just before the first crash our local senator maria cantwell helped write some clauses in the faa reauthorization bill a month beforere the crash. increasingly among the delegation of boeing but can't well reversed completely after the crashes to last december she helped pass this reform act. since then the faa does seem to be getting tougher. they have delayed certification of the 777 quite a lot.

it will take four years, it took one year for the certification of the 777 and in fact ten-month and now it's going to be 44 months for the new version ofou the 777a. they have gotten tougher and i've written several stories about how they are tightening up a little bit but i wonder do you think it's gone far enough withi the faa? is it really going to change? >> i think time will tell. it will depend on whether the cultural shift takes hold and as you reported recently the faa was concerned about the experience level of its people than boeing was appointing his deputies to represent the faa. it's taken place over generation that has to be addressed on both sides. >> right.

lets that back from them max go back to the cultural shift. lots of people blamed the mcdonnell douglas merger. 201957 for the change in the culture ofof boeing. the ceo at the time bill condon is the guy who moved headquarters to chicago from here. you write in the book condon was drawn to the division of capitalism and the corporate chieftaincy attired. conditt was an engineer before he became ceo. he is a top engineer which was the best airplane that boeing made. what happened to conditt after he became ceo? >> he was a great engineer. he would have been a great college professor.

his constituency of shareholders was very powerful and that became the group that he judged his own performance on. and if you're a member at the timeme jack welch of general electric which was the ultimate model for manufacturing the u.s. and for a company like boeing that meant the services and financialt engineering and finance. so phil conditt pursued acquisitions and his commercial airplane company could take care of itself. he would move to chicago and he'd become a strategic fixture. >> i interviewed conditt when he worked for the seattle times.. it was that the leadership

center and st. louis in 2000. it was before they announced that the headquarters moved. he talked about wanting to shift the idea of what boeing wants. of course all the planes were medal at the time that he was talking about new connections and internet connections to airplanes beaming movies to sum up a satellite. he wanted to boeing to be high-tech and metal bending. you mentioned general electric. the influence of ge owned boeing has been incredible. we got stonesifer who came with douglas and he was a ge guy and jack welch. then we had mcnerney who is almost his successor but was turned on.

and now we have dave calhoun. he was also a ge guy so this influence has beenen there for years. there's a description the book ge was an american institution that pioneered inventions that dramatically improved the american standard. the x-ray machine the diesel electric locomotive, the refrigerator. the people who worked in the factories and industrial burg from a country -- family. welch was telling investors he wouldn't flinch from the hard decisions to jettison them whatever the human or political costs. actually after he took over within the next five years he laid off a quarter of the ge staff and got the neck name neutronn jack. this was the area -- ceos being lionized on the cover of

"fortune" magazine and jack welch was the top of the time. can you talk a little bit about how ge had such influence over corporate america generally and boeing specifically? c at the time he was considered, he was the model of what a ceold should look like and what they should prior ties and phil condit and stonesifer worked for him and was the protégé of jack welsh so it meant things like fix fix it or sell it. you have to fire the bottom 10% every year. financial engineering and earnings expectations from 95 to 2004 which you can do if you

have the financing where you can sell at one quarter by about the next quarter. the fcc found ge went beyond the breaking point was his wording. jack welch had this influence throughout boeing and as you say it continues to this day. dave calhoun is jack welch's former speechwriter and said he's the guy most like jack in his book. >> we will go back specifically to boeing a moment but to broaden out the context of what has happened even broader you cite the influence of milton friedman in 1970 who wrote in 1970 a company's sole responsibility is to increase its profits.

and then you had this rather arresting sentence, two generations later many prosperous american cities the effects are plain tesla's luxury high-rise is -- it sounds like seattle. there was an academic writing that and i find it startling that it's coming from a business reporter.. so it's kind of a stunning judgment on the business will take you think corporate america -- >> it's a big question for business reporter but on a business who has seen the story over time and is seeing how it ends. i wrote in 1998 and was eager to meet these great engineers where

boeing was lionized in ulta last. that was also this period of shareholder business roundtable at the time had declared as part of its corporate governance statement the first duty to the company is the shareholder. .. chairman of the business roundtable and more recently. you're seeing that shift the business roundtable is recognizing that companies have duties to all s recognizing company had duties all shareholders. cooks one stakeholder group is the employees. the other ceos were so union. i just had this mentality they could get cheaper labor

somewhere else. so all the talents here in the generations of skills, is some ways was thrown away. making people feel like that meant they had lost some pride in the company. let's get back to the specifics of boeing. i have also heardar people say boeing should be run by an engineer, the current ceo is not an engineer. but, dennis simone berg was an engineer as we said earlier. when he came in and follow i remember being full of hope, it's an engineer taking over. one of the first things you did sign a new contract with the engineering union white negotiations and come up with this.t, i thought wow that's a great sign. inin fact it interests cap very

strictly to the mcnerney way. they had taken for 18 months to chicago to be under his wing to be groomed for the role. and i don't straight it all from the financial focus that mcnerney had taught him. very badly next target. you failed? he was this energetic engineering guy, why did he fail so badly? she would think of being an engineer for the engineering would have primacy in the company berg is a great program manager pretty is detail oriented. he iscl driven. he writes as his bicycle 140 miles a week. ills you need in a crisis are

not the sum and engineering. you need someone withut broad judgment about what to do. and a lot of ways the people described bill allen who was a lawyer as being the best ceo. he was someone he wrote notes to himself like don't talk too much. let others talk becoat consider. make a sincere effort to understand labor's viewpoint. that has been happening at boeing. there's a story untill the book about a crack 47 in japan. we crashed into the side of the mountain called had the month following had come out and said there had been a repair job it took the japanese authorities by complete surprise. and i am to people who after the

crash thought boeing had just made s a similar even that'sav difficult to do it's hard to admit fault. it could have diffused everything that happened after words. >> by the wayer i should peter n pictures on this personality is pretty really gives you a lot of depth about what moe person has religiosity and bike riding in his whole intensive focus. anit is all there in the book. and for many of the other leaders. let me ask you about another one just out in the valley. they come up many engineers if only alan henn's aide he had been the ceo would have been saved. but he was of course the 787 debacle. he left just before it all fell

apart. and you write about how he become distant by the way that revealed a more sordid what is not elevated to ceo. he was about that. the revered figure at boeing. the person brought the 777 home to great success. it really popularized the phrase workingr together. this id leading to over communicate a phrase that was a problem communication is the illusion that happened. so he brought people together. he was considered technically brilliant.

our smiling, boyish, had a perpetually upbeat personality. people i talked of the book was held up against him in some ways. in his terms may concern for the ceo role against jim mcnerney who wasor a board member he was seen as more on the ceo type. they're just some people who look like an nfl quarterback. in the same way mcnerney looks like a ceo. would pursue a more predictable was seen as excitable and build that plane. there is another factor that came up which i get into in the book is a concern about his personal life.

at that time there been two consecutive ceos who had resigned because in inappropriate relationships wito subordinates. the board could afford to take dthe risk. details you can see the book. [laughter] at this point let me ask some your sources as in many of my stories have to be anonymous. because boeing employees cannot talk to me or you without a pr person beside them or they losea their jobs. can you talk about your sources in my some of them are anonymous? and how you came to trust them? >> i trust them they had direct knowledge of the events. and just then a newspaper article or any other article their situations they can't be named it could affect their career and their livelihood.

but. >> he did an incredible amount of research. a lot of reading, possibly travel did you travel to mullen berg's hometown? >> this is during the pandemic i traveled to the kitchen to make a sandwich. [laughter] i really relied on deporting ident over the 25 years and visiting the facilities and haven't been to air shows and conferences in meeting airlines and customers over that time. i did zoom interviews with people overseas. >> it is marvelously documented with all the various points he makes. running out ofic time to let me just ask a couple quick questions. as we mentioned it certainly is at a low point in its history but almost seems like it's too

chilly in leadership to out of this and to recover. the leaders right now are calhoun the ceo in chicago and the local commercial airplane chief. are these the right leaders? what do you think is needed to save boeing? >> i spent a lot of time reading rabout boeing. bus 25 years as i said. the theme that struck me is investing in the product bill boeing set let no improvement in flying passes by. all it ultimately succeeds at planes like the 747 in the 707 and the 7:30 seven even were not seen as sure bets at the time when the investments were made ultimately there was a payoff. i do not know if that is something it's has a history of

private equity. nt ahas a history the focal posn they're overwhelmed with debt and probably should launch a new era plan. it's a badm time to do so and they don't have the money. going to ask two very quick questions and them t are going o go to questions from the audience. the max is back in service. is it fixed? would you put your kids on board? >> the software has been addressed. the particular fault with the software, there were other things thero specialist afa wand they wanted shielding around the rudder cables. they wanted a caste system and a low electronic checklist. those have not been put on the plane. i think the statistics i saw last year it was one every

3.7 million flights had a fatal crash. the max's had 200,000 or more than 200,000 at this point. i'm going to wait for more evidence and for me, for my kids. lecture not one fly on it? >> i don't have to fly newer now. [laughter] >> okay. one last question we talk about ge and you've all probably heard the news recently lapsed for the whole oedipus of ge is that they are breaking up. so because of that other companies are along the same lines. toshiba in japan is doing the same. do you think it is possible and do you think it would be a good idea for boeing to break up into its commercial and defense units again under the merger and perhaps move back the headquarters to seattle?

he was really appealing it would turn back the clock the preet 97 boeing was a high point with two thirds of the market. the thing about being a combined personal as you so much and synergy. i think a breakup of boeing could potentially have other effects you might be tempted to take theseut table military government contracts put the obligations and the riskier commercial airplane business. so ideally for boeing it would come out of this mba combined a stable company. >> it is certainly an idea i have heard from some senior boeing executives in the past. okay, it is time for audience questions. i've got a little ipad here to go through. let me see what we can do.

which of boeing's ceo should take the most blame for the 737 max crashes? [laughter] dennis mullen berg was the one who was at the helm. at the very end of development. and he had the opportunity to dig into the truth and what happened after the first crash. >> does boeing have something to learn from air buses at this point given the problem of the max and the new dreamliner.

>> their chief pilot has always had a lot of clout within the organization. i think boeingav does have something to learn from airbus. one thing that i learned in reporting the book is that there is a stereotype that europe with its strict labor regulations is at a disadvantage to boeing. that becamein an advantage to se ways to boeing because it had to train its workforce. it had to rely on a highlync skilled workforce. so that is one difference. >> i guess this is also an airbus related question, what role did the competitive landscape play in the failures that led to the engineering problems with the max. i think boeing was sad the mania

for cost cut was because the >> of air buses. >> there was many opportunities during the past 20 or 30 years that boeing has the choice. airbus is come out of the plane that went about 20 years newer. the airbus had a plane that had fly by wire electronic technology. boeing didn't. there is a meeting i wrote about in 1992 that gordon bassoon later become ceo of continental. executive and the commercial airplane business went around the room and said she would 7:30 seven?and-new and he got a kick under the table from someone who wanted to vote the other way. he said nexgen is the way to go the vote was five -- three. there been points toto boeing's history work could have taken

the step to invest. it was always the more expedient one to not because of the wide base the 7:30 seven had an the factory was already paid off. >> historically boeing with the guess with the 777 as well. when it came time for the 87 the culture of cost cutting was already therehi in chicago. and so they came up with this sourcing so boeing wouldn't have to pay for a lot of it. which was a financial disaster. one of the main lessons of the max tragedy? >> the main lesson as i see it is to listen to what your employees are telling you.

their managers had a prime directive to minimize training on. there were points in boeing's history when there was also ain wish to minimize training. but there was an understanding a if that was permissible by the design. if we could design a way to make that possible. i think the dictates of management overrode people on the ground were saying. >> the next question about the faa. the leader of the certification process here for a long time was allie and then he left she worked in industry the industry association. and then he became aviation safety director in washington d.c. for the faa. the faa top executive. how would you describe?

cooksey was described as someone who represented the revolving door at work. he saw boeing as his customer. he would telll specialist in the office and leave it to boeing they know what to do. they know the k processes. you and to the industry lobbying group and made salary came back to the faa. and allowed the max to keep flying after the first crash. >> it seemset like these ideas take hold in an organization. whether it is a ceo or somebody in the public agency this ceo rises to the top he was an engineer. after all these groups corporate america tells him what to do. which is to cut costs.

and squeeze suppliers. and get rid of unions. and sadly that is what you have to do. in this whole management level at that faa seem to think of their job was to help boeing compete against airbus and to champion american industry in other words by certifying more quickly and giving him boeing the ability to do it itself. you've got a lot of groupthink there. what does boeing actually need to do to build and sell the aircraft the customers want rather than have them by airbus? [laughter] well, let boeing the 777 was to come up with a gang of eight of customers who told it what they wanted. so listen to customers.

>> writes, didn't they write it down on a napkin or something what were going to do? yes we are going to have a plane from the beginning. we deliver it and everything works. it was in very plain language on a napkin. during the early days of the max certification faa engineers were fond of saying when i'm hauled in front of congress and asked what we did it this way i will say beef because you told this to mr. congressman. i guess you've already address that. one of your sources actually said that. any further comment on that? read the book. [laughter] heater in the excerpt of your

book i mean the piece that was published in bloomberg business week this week, and the excerpt you released a huge segmentt focused on within the company. why didn't the previous public investigation of the max failed to bring this culture to light? i'm not sure that is referring to. maybe the view of the foreign pilots in indonesia and so on as i was getting at? >> think it's getting at the idea there was perhaps unconscious cultural bias that pilots overseas were not as skilled as pilots in the u.s. and that is a part of the book that looks at the response after the first crash. all is a man who lost five family members for his wife, his threeha children, his mother-in-law in the crash in ethiopia.

what he said is that he felt the first crash at taking place in the u.s. or the uk or canada or lives matter more than other places, his family would not havew, t died. after the first crash they were indonesians there was a moment top executives it boeing the american pilots said this could have happened to us on a flight out of miami. we would have dropped a plane of bay that we would've had a real. the american pilot set i think you know what i mean. the boeing executive answered i do. >> is there a chance the u.s. eventually gets left behind but europe and possibly china? >> there is there such a strong

duopoly for so many years there many analysts who are skeptical of another airplane builder including china entering the market. china does have the advantage of having a huge market of the max and not flying in china yet. that also has the advantage of having loaned a lot of money to a lot of countries that can by airplanes. that could change next ten -- 20 years. >> here's a question about the move out of seattle.go i guess not just moving the headquarters to chicago, but also moving work out of seattle they've done a lot of that. was moving work out of seattle so we bust union do you think? >> i think the cfo at one point said it was to move to more

cost-effective areas. i think there were moments when moving the flight simulators to miami, actually pilots who experience that did it feel like a move to bust the union because it did happen right in the middle of contract talks. >> yes and i think south carolina in 2009 wasn't directly triggered by the machinists strike. that in rage mcnerney. he was not going to put it in washington state after that. it's pretty extraordinary after we gave all of the tax breaks we do not have the 87 built her at all. all south carolina now. do you see any correlations with a boeings issue with military

aircraft? either the p8 which is based on the 737 or the casie 46 tanker? i guess the question must be any maxelation with the problems and those airplanes? >> evidence is showing it as a widespread cultural problem. diminishing the focus on engineering has happened across the company. >> well, i don't know if i got a clear answer to this earlier so i will ask it again. can bethink of boeing saved? it is at a low point now but cannot recover? can it recover its glory? can it cover its quality with airbus? the airshow just finished yesterday and it was a remarkable performance by airbus full of confidence.

boeing had one max order and came home and has said very little. so can boeing get out of this? next i think with investments it can. it is at a very low point. special limit narrowbody market where it's basically a reversal of where it was 20 years ago. it was two thirds of boeing and now it is two thirds airbus. and in some parts of the market with the a3 21 it has a five -- one gap. it would take a very focused effort. that is the way i'm putting it. cooks well, i think people in this region can only hope that will happen. should boeing rename the max?

>> it's a 7378, right? >> by so-called the max. that is a marketing question. [laughter] cooks boeing is not officially renaming it. think be pretty pointless. some airlines if you climb on board some of them. i think that we are out of questions or out of time. i will ask one more. wallenberg met with the families. i think this was after the annual general meeting in october 2019. but they had no a mediator or conflict resolution specialist at the meeting with the families. how do you think boeing handled all white and the how do you think boeing handled treating

the families of the victims of those crashes? >> they did not meet with them for long time. i know it their family members felt they should have met with them earlier. but i've been told at that meeting for instance one point of concern after words at leaste one member felt dave, hone in public had exaggerated the amount of time that was spent with family members. and it isic an incredibly difficult situation. but in that situation they felt it was compounded by the exaggeration of the amount of sensitivity that boeing had shownia. there was a memorial held after words which boeing arranged. it was held in ethiopia into

some of the family members i talked to they felt as if it was a commemoration of the bp oil spill staged by bp. at one point there was concern boeing would be of service at all. one of the top executives answered if we are paying for it, we will be there. which again was felt as k.insensitive. those are some of things i cover in the book. >> let me ask one final question that is kind of related to how they communicated with those families. twenty think of boeings communication with us and the world? the ceo is not given interviews publicly except for cnbc your people like jim cramer to say you are wonderful. they do not talk to me.

they do not talk to the press. they do not even let me ask questions of the earnings calls anymore. ssnot just me, no press. no press questions. it seems like they have really clamped down. the excuse they have given is wa are waiting until the regulators and give the okay to the max. we do not want to get in the way. but everybody has done it now except for the chinese basically. communication stratef the company at the moment. it's something i've never seen. it's i think almost unheard of for a company to not give regular press interviews. i think the reason is that they don't want him to put his foot in his mouth or was a sure, you saw that the shareholder suit the judge in that suit said that dave calhoun had lied in public

about the board having met immediately after the soon after the line aircraft had each of his public representations was false. so i think it's a shell shock from. backlash all right. well, look, i'm gonna leave it there and first of all peter's book. i think it's available on widely at the end of this month november 30th, but elliott bay bookstore has it right now and it's out in the hall the seattle times will run an excerpt in the pacific northwest magazine on sunday, december 12th. but don't let that stop you from buying the book. i highly recommend it. anybody who's interested in boeing should read it. thank you very much for coming.

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