Boeing 737 Max Crisis: Opinionated Guide to the Perplexed

How the mighty have fallen. Commercial aviation began in the United States with the flight of the Wright Brothers in 1903. In the ensuing century, U.S. airlines, aircraft makers and regulators were viewed as the embodiment of aviation safety. But things look different after the two recent crashes of new Boeing 737 MAX jets that took 346 lives. The old saying, “If it's not Boeing, I'm not going,” has been replaced with the hashtag, “If it's Boeing, I'm not going,” and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) was sharply overruled by safety authorities the world over when it hesitated to ground the MAX after the disasters.