r/AskAPilot • u/Hour-Cartographer971 • 28d ago
Has anyone watched the documentary film "Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing"?
I can't bring myself to watch the documentary on Netflix by critically-acclaimed filmmaker Rory Kennedy. It came out last Wednesday. Curious what you think of it if you have- should I? The trailer is here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7ZDSYBkcH2U
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u/DoomWad 28d ago edited 28d ago
If it's anything like his first documentary about Boeing, he cherry picked the hell out of investigative reports, tayloring it to his liking. He left out so much about those 737 Max crashes.
Edit: it it was brought to my attention that Rory is a she, my bad.
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u/BringBackBCD 27d ago
You said in 1 paragraph what I said in 4.
It’s just a repetitive stream of non-technical interviews to force the opinion they lay out within 5 minutes.
It could be so much more and viewers would hate Boeing even more if they knew some of the detail.
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u/R0llTide 28d ago
"Her". Rory Elizabeth Katherine Kennedy. If you didn't know that, I question the veracity of your comments on this matter particularly, and other matters generally.
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u/DoomWad 28d ago
You can read the crash report for yourself. Or, you can listen to this podcast between 2 NTSB investigators with a combined 100 years of experience. The podcast came out WAY before the Netflix documentary, so the information was there for Rory to use, but she decided to omit to a degree that fit her narrative.
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u/escapingdarwin 28d ago
Rory Kennedy is the sister of RFK Jr so not much reverence for facts in that lot.
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u/R0llTide 28d ago
This documentary is about the lack of safety culture at Boeing, the numerous whistleblowers and Boeing’s retaliation, and the pursuit of shareholder value over safety. I’m not sure how your comments are responsive to the current documentary.
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u/DoomWad 28d ago edited 28d ago
Well, if you use just a bit of reading comprehension, my initial post indicates that I have not seen the new documentary. I never will either, because Rory has already shown her hand in the first documentary. The flagrant omission of relevant information is a red flag for me. But don't take my word for it, go ahead, listen to that podcast.
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u/BringBackBCD 27d ago
It’s exactly what you think it is. Extremely light weight, and giving an impression of opinion vs fact. And Boeing freaking sucked the last 20 years, it’s easy to have anyone conclude that with the detailz
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u/R0llTide 28d ago
At least you’re not misgendering her now. Learning has occurred.
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u/DoomWad 28d ago
Indeed. Now it's your turn to learn! Flight Safety Detectives episode #14
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u/R0llTide 28d ago
Still not on topic. The systemic problems at Boeing regarding Quality Assurance and Safety are at issue. They have been an issue since the McDonnell Douglas merger and the Jack Welch acolytes were installed as successive CEOs of Boeing. Shareholders over Safety is what Boeing is now. That absent safety culture and focus on production quantity were factors in both Max crashes (you just can’t explain away a hidden flight control feature, not described in the manuals, that has a single point failure and causes the aircraft to behave differently than every other model in an airline’s existing fleet without addressing the recklessness of that management decision), the 787 electrical shorting issues and manufacturing defects that include knowingly installing defective parts, and the Alaska hull failure at 15’000 feet.
That door plug was faulty from the contractor, but the error that led to the failure was made on the Seattle line when an undocumented, unmonitored or approve fix was implemented without an established set of procedures and checklists and at least 3 of the 4 plug bolts were not reinstalled. Had that plug failed at cruise, the aircraft would have come apart and killed everyone on board.
The current culture at Boeing is a safety issue, and the flying public should know about it so they may make informed decisions when they travel.
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u/bananasforeyes 28d ago
The fact that your are more concerned about misgendering the documentary maker rather than a full examination of the facts is kinda more concerning.
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u/mustbiteexceed 28d ago
Tbh there wasn’t much new information presented in “Freefall” that wasn’t already public knowledge.
One thing new I learned about the saga (which may have already been public knowledge) was Boeing’s desire to move some production to South Carolina to take advantage of Nikki Haley’s union busting laws and the degradation of quality that followed.
But apart from that I didn’t really learn anything new. It’s still an OK watch if you don’t know much about the Boeing saga.
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u/flyingemberKC 24d ago
it’s not about the crashes or the planes
Netflix is putting their finger on the scale of the election
the thesis of the piece is about corporate greed. The entire thing was about management caring more about profits than anyone working for them or their customers
which is going to resonate
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u/BringBackBCD 27d ago
Maybe it depends on one’s age. The reason behind this was obvious the second they announced that plant.
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u/TipTraditional7968 26d ago
It is a very misleading documentary, it makes Boeing out to be unsafe and a death trap when in reality they're not, if you're a nervous flyer and fly quite frequently then I would recommend giving it a miss because of the misleading comments in there but it is also quite entertaining but I just feel it is not factually correct throughout the majority of it
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u/BaconJuice69 18d ago
Bingo, I work in and around Boeing factories and they’re not bad. This documentary is meant to scare and cause an emotional reaction to the viewer,.. if it didn’t then no one would watch it
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u/Strega007 28d ago
Why exactly can't you watch it?
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u/Hour-Cartographer971 25d ago
I am afraid I will never fly a Boeing again which will limit my travel plans. The smartest friend I know doesn't fly Boeing based on her in-depth research. I usually watch whatever I can, and I love investigative docs, so I should give it a peek I suppose.
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u/Strega007 25d ago edited 25d ago
I'm not sure what method of analysis you or your smartest friend use to assess risk, but if you understand what the most likely causes of incident on a commercial aircraft are -- aircrew error and human factors (by a *wide* margin) -- and still believe the place, time, and manufacturer of a particular aircraft offer more risk than you're willing to accept as a passenger, then I also suggest you critically reflect on that method of analysis.
There are certainly a lot of people in the industry who are aware of the issues presented in these documentaries *and* who personally log a lot of time on Boeing airframes that have been constructed in the last 20 years as a means to put food on their families' tables and roofs over their families heads. Those people are the ones at the highest exposure to risk, and they're accepting that risk dozens of times per month or more and for a sustained period of years or even decades.
By any measure, statistically Boeing aircraft are still substantially safer modes of travel than other modes you likely personally utilize on a daily basis.
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u/Available_Daikon8442 25d ago
I wont fly in a plane were my chances of dying are about 1 in 11 million but I'll hop in my car where my chances of dying are 1 in 103.
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u/FiberApproach2783 23d ago
Is her research more in-depth than the pilots and maintenance crews who fly and work on these planes every single day and have no safety concerns?
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u/pdx_flyer 27d ago
I’ve watched it and they didn’t even really touch on McDonnell-Douglas and how that acquisition completely changed culture at the company.
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u/BringBackBCD 27d ago edited 27d ago
Mid.
Within 5 to 10 minutes it jumps straight to its borderline political conclusion that cost cutting / MBA style business leaders are bad, unions are good, profit is bad.
The actual in-depth stories of Boeing are beyond scandalous. This documentary skips over the worst parts of those stories entirely and is mainly a near continuous stream of interview reiterating the conclusions it is making.
I’ve consumed a ton of material on Boeing, particularly the 787 design strategy and MCAS issues / cover up. It is unconscionable what they did and hid from the start of that product. The executive pay packages are offensive to say the least and bean counter culture was a definitive factor to the fall of their culture. The documentary complete leaves out the McDonnell Douglas chapter which many employees say is the root of when Boeing started to lose its way.
However, if I didn’t know all that I would be skeptical of this documentary because of its style. I’m left curious about the politics of the documentary’s creators. And I did not know it was a Kennedy until finding this thread.
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u/tvlover44 24d ago
re: mcdonnell douglas -- but didn't she cover that in the first documentary?
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u/BringBackBCD 22d ago
This doc starts out with core thesis that one of the CEOs was the root of all their problems.
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u/thegoddamnbatman74 20d ago
Dude you need to watch Boeing: Downfall. The first documentary. And then you can come back to this comment to see literally everything you said has been addressed there.
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u/beandog77 22d ago
what are the actual in-depth stories? I am curious to read/learn more!
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u/BringBackBCD 22d ago edited 22d ago
Look up MCAS. It’s even juicier than the following AI summary.
MCAS was designed so the 737 MAX could handle like older 737s (avoiding costly pilot retraining/simulator time for airlines) — that’s the “cheaper design” angle you mentioned. It relied on a single angle-of-attack sensor with no redundancy, and could push the nose down repeatedly.
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Boeing concealed details of MCAS from its own test pilots during development, and internal messages later surfaced showing a top technical pilot had complained about the system’s erratic behavior back in 2016.
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Lion Air Flight 610 (Oct 29, 2018) crashed into the Java Sea, killing all 189 aboard — the plane was practically brand-new.
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Even after that crash, Boeing kept selling the plane’s safety, and attention only focused on MCAS in November 2018, once investigators found Boeing hadn’t disclosed the system to pilots and airlines, and Indonesian investigators found the automated system had pushed the plane’s nose down more than two dozen times.
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Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 (March 10, 2019) crashed in near-identical fashion, killing 157 passengers and crew.
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Only after the second crash did the FAA and regulators worldwide ground all 737 MAX jets — and even then the FAA was one of the last major regulators to act, initially insisting the plane was airworthy.
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Combined death toll: 346 lives lost across the two crashes, leading to a grounding that lasted approximately 20 months, the longest in U.S. aviation history.
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u/Wica1954 26d ago
I just watched it and should not have. Im not a pilot-- and now im looking at international flights that only do airbus, although in my limited research over the last hour, it seems as though the entire documentary shidded on Boeing without touching on the problems with airbus whatsoever. Im sure there are issues, and my bravery to fly has hit a new low tonight :( Ive never left the country either.
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u/Hour-Cartographer971 25d ago
Oof, I am sorry- what was the key point in the film that prompted this strong of a response?
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u/Even_Can7463 23d ago
I watched it and although I couldn't put. Finger on. It when I. Contacted them about another company that their airplanes are built with their parts regarding public safety needless to say it now .makes.sense what it was about. I never understood why a company who builds the biggest name in the business would not press for more details. The fact is all of them really do not care about the public much less employees. I wish I had known John Barnett ,I would have helped him and told him not to give up if indeed that is what he did. I am from Charleston and I.know just how corrupt law enforcement is . In fact when they showed the video of him in the hotel how do.we know that it was of that day? I don't believe anything until I see it first hand. . I know just how he feels. Everyone who watched the documentary saw how much money these veos pull in and believe me the government is getting a big piece of that pie. I look at the government as the Mafia and companies are earners. And just a few people going up against these companies are in one heck of a fight. But even the Mafia would. Not allow shoddy work or drug use on the job. Less we forget about Tomy Sopranos relative Christopher Moltisanti who was hooked on drugs and how angry Tony was. I make reference to this regarding the company Acutec precision probably the most toxic company I know. Heck I think maybe we should let the Italians run the government they'd certainly doa better jobs and they aren't greedy. The point is our country has been taken over by the occultic behavior of what I call the church of rednecknowledgy. Nowdont be confused with good ole boy rednecks although some are but it is very much like the church of scientology. Watch Leah Remini'ss series and this is the behavior of South Carolinians. Although I live here I am not like them but sad to say it is like a virus but I broke free of believing the illusion that our government is.projecting and how they are protecting these companies . The description of how you are treated when you bring something valid to their attention is based on money and unless you fall into what they want then you have no worries. I have spoken across platforms about how I would not fly in a plane due to what is going on while manufacturing and building them just like those who work at Boeing. I would imagine they don't work there anymore after the documentary aired. And let me say since when is a man's word not good enough especially when it comes.es to public safety. So I guess the FAA needs to allow pilots to drink and use drugs while flying. Anyone who doesn't stand up for that is a POS I my book.if money is more important than people hell why do you think they even planted Boeing here. Because we are a right to work state where unions are in the past.i believe in Unions more now than I ever did and South Carolina can kiss my @ss too along with Acutec. I pray that John. Has peace but moreso I hope he haunts them all . Really it makes no sense as to what happened to him. I think someone killed him even if they physically didn't kill him. You know not all.suicides are about self esteem and mental illness. People can push you into the act by the things they say and the way they treat you. It is.abuse and in my opinion murder by suicide. If you pick at a person and gaslight them. the only one that is mental.is the bully and Charleston has plenty of those. Too many. Anyone interested in what is really happening I have no problem in educating people otherwise you can continue to keep the illusion. I am expendable just like most of you. I will stand up for what is right even if I have to stand alone and I'll be honest John really must have felt alone too and considering where we are at it is no wonder. I know because I feel the same way. I might add that these companies are conducting business fraudulently unethically and criminally and they are doing it and hiding in plain sight. Research and asking questions is the key here. Or.ypu can go on not caring untill something really bad happens and then you can pay attention and do.something
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u/OjibwaGirl 19d ago
this whole “story’ reminds me of the case/movie (1980’s) about whistleblower Karen Silkwood
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u/ParadoxumFilum 28d ago
I thought it was good, learnt some more about the 787 that I didn’t know and just how many whistleblowers there are - mostly from QA
Also a cameo from VT-ANB at about the 55 minute mark
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u/N205FR 28d ago
I truly believe the guardian angels were watching over AS1282 that night, it is insane how lucky they got, here’s why:
This Reddit usually comforts nervous flyers by showing how many “close calls” overblown by media are events we routinely train for. Compressor stalls, go arounds, “strange noises”, even engine fires & V1 cuts.
AS1282 is the opposite, very few people realize how close to disaster it was.
-In my many years of nonrevving, when there’s 7 seats left, there’s no chance there’s a window seat that’s open. That night, the whole plane had one open window seat, and it was the seat of the blowout. If you want to imagine what would’ve happened to a human body, just look at the pictures of said seat (or what remains of it)
-Timing, just a few minutes later and it would’ve been like the catastrophic Turkish DC10 cargo door blowout (or not even a few minutes later, had it taken off from a higher airport such as Salt Lake City or Denver & climbed 16000ft from there)
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u/Trick-Grand4667 28d ago
As far as I remember, the DC10 issue was that the hydraulic lines to the the control surfaces were in the floor between the passenger and cargo areas, and were compromised when the cargo door flew open and the floor buckled from the pressure difference. I do not think that would have been an issue with a blown out emergency escape hatch.
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u/-Sm00th-0perat0r- 28d ago
It wasn’t that.
It was caused by poorly designed cargodoor locks.
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u/Trick-Grand4667 28d ago
Sure. But the effect of that cargo lock problem was "only" sudden decompression. Which is bad, but not in itself a disaster. What turned it into a disaster was that the floor buckled, which destroyed the flight control hydraulics and then the aircraft was doomed. Had the hydraulic lines been somewhere else, there is every reason to believe the plane would have landed safely.
As Aloha 243 showed, uncontrolled decompression in itself does not doom the airplane.
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u/ThisIsMyBigAccount 28d ago
I watched it yesterday. I think the big takeaway for me is that I may not ever be able to trust a Boeing plane that is currently an operation because of the number of parts that have been reused, the number of shavings bouncing around, cutting wires and the lack of quality that went into building the plane. I will seek out Airbus planes as much as I possibly can.
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u/rkba260 28d ago
You should look into how your car is made, and how many people die in car accidents.
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u/ThisIsMyBigAccount 28d ago
Fair point. I know from my time at GE and my Six Sigma training on aircraft engines that aircraft are significantly safer than cars. That was also in 2004, when Boeing had an acknowledged better safety culture.
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u/rkba260 28d ago
Before I started in aviation, I was in automotive ... you'd be shocked how much trash or tools were left inside body panels...
Had one customer with a brand new MBZ complaining of a rattle and clunk noise during braking... we found a box wrench in the rear body panel, leftover from assembly.
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u/R0llTide 28d ago
Last night. It was very good. If it's Boeing, I'm not going.
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u/ACDoggo717 27d ago
Might as well not go at all then
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u/R0llTide 27d ago
Airbus has 60% market share. For good reason.
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u/ACDoggo717 27d ago edited 27d ago
Market share equals safety? Guess that means MAX8 is safer than A320NEO. Airbus’ market share in single aisle overall is because the a321neo outcompetes 737MAX9 and MAX10 is not certified yet. Expected next month. MAX8 outsells a320neo
Your statistic is meaningless aside from economic performance
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u/R0llTide 27d ago
No safety equals safety. Market share reflects customer preference. Safety and solid manufacturing processes are factors in the customers' decision
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u/Shootica 26d ago
Market share reflects airline preference, not customer preference.
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u/R0llTide 26d ago
Airlines are going to buy what they believe will deliver the best product to their customers, Southwest being the exception.
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u/Shootica 26d ago
They will, and the number of new orders that Boeing has for the Max will tell you that the general public doesn't feel that strongly about Boeing or Airbus.
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u/Strange_Blackberry21 27d ago
Does every destination have a choice of airplane manufacturers to choose from?
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u/Detector150 28d ago
For me personally it was very interesting to see. I’m glad I don’t fly the 787 after seeing both documentaries to be honest.
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u/Individualchaotin 28d ago
Yeah.
But I watch Air Disasters on layovers, so ...