On Thursday, Boeing for the first time officially took responsibility for the two crashes of 737 Max jets that got the planes grounded by regulators.

Claiming responsibility was part of an attempt to get the planes approved to fly again. Boeing was trying to say that it now understands why the planes crashes — flawed software — and has a plan in place to replace it with new software that will eliminate the problem and persuade regulators to get the planes off the ground. But then Friday morning, the company announced that it had found a second, unrelated software flaw that it also needs to fix and will somewhat delay the process of getting the planes cleared to fly again.

All of which, of course, raises the question of why such flawed systems were allowed to fly in the first place.

And that story begins nine years ago when Boeing was faced with a major threat to its bottom line, spurring the airline to rush a series of kludges through the certification process — with an underresourced Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) seemingly all too eager to help an American company threatened by a foreign competitor, rather than to ask tough questions about the project.

The specifics of what happened in the regulatory system are still emerging (and despite executives’ assurances, we don’t even really know what happened on the flights yet). But the big picture is coming into view: A major employer faced a major financial threat, and short-term politics and greed won out over the integrity of the regulatory system. It’s a scandal.

Source: Vox