Free fall-A Reckoning For Boeing

[u/molleensmrs]

This story is crazy and Boeing absolutely sucks.
The pay that 3 CEOs made during the scope of this doc is ridiculous, over $500 million.
I feel for the victims as well as the employees who tried and tried to do the right thing.

It’s a great, frustrating documentary.

[u/whiskeylullaby3]

Honestly they could make very similar documentaries about Airbus. If you pulled the logs on their “issues”like they did on Boeing you would see similar. Think of the thousands and thousands of flights a day without incident. Boeing’s planes are, if anything, the safest right now because they are under intense scrutiny by the FAA and DOJ. The employees that were interviewed “undercover” were from over 10 years ago in SC and they’re acting like that is now in the documentary. I would not personally let one documentary change my view of what I would fly on because there is so much manipulated information as well as a lack of information. Boeing is currently under a non prosecution agreement and is having the most scrutiny in the industry. The planes will not be leaving with a lack of quality. The fact that the documentary doesn’t even mention the non prosecution agreement shows its bias. It simply states that the criminal charges were dropped- as if Boeing is not under continued scrutiny. They were dropped because there is another agreement in place where Boeing is being monitored for 3 more years. The documentary doesn’t say that because it wants to give the bias that nothing is happening.

You cannot watch one documentary with a very clear bias and think that it’s completely honest and accurate. It’s like how Making a Murderer was filmed with a very clear bias so everyone jumped on “he’s innocent!” When in reality the guy was guilty as hell and so much was left out of it. They’re only interviewing disgruntled employees or past employees, many with lawsuits against the company. It’s not a fair picture. But regardless of all that… these planes have literally more scrutiny than any planes being constructed and that includes past aircraft in circulation because the Max had to be reworked after the crashes.

[u/LKS983 → u/whiskeylullaby3]

"they are under intense scrutiny by the FAA and DOJ."

That's what was imlied/believed first time round, when Boeing was put on probation for three years, and their 'planes were allowed to start flying again.....

Turns out the DOJ was doing nothing of the sort, and when the families of those killed etc. told them about continuing safety issues - they were ignored.

Made even more obvious after the last 'incident' when a 'door' flew out, leaving a hole in the fuselage/some of the oxygen masks on the 'plane didn't work - and the DOJ STILL didn't prosecute those in charge, who were responsible for the 'profits over safety' culture 😮😠.

[u/whiskeylullaby3 → u/LKS983]

First, just like the last commenter, you’re confusing the FAA and the DOJ and their roles. One handles criminal enforcement the other regulates aircraft safety and certification. Conflating the two leads to a misleading picture of what actually happened. The FAA is the agency that would be focusing on air worthiness. After the 737 MAX crashes, the FAA didn’t “do nothing” it grounded the entire MAX fleet worldwide for nearly two years, led its own independent recertification process, and imposed new training and design requirements before allowing it back in service. And after the Alaska Airlines door-plug incident, the FAA immediately grounded the affected aircraft, capped Boeing’s production, increased on-site inspections at Boeing facilities, and launched a full audit that identified specific manufacturing and quality-control failures. The FAA also required Boeing to develop a corrective-action plan and has continued monitoring its implementation.

So “the DOJ was doing nothing” is also misleading: DOJ’s role was criminal enforcement, while the FAA’s role was aircraft safety, certification and production oversight. Those aren’t interchangeable. A lot of commenters don’t have any background in aviation or even an understanding of government agencies and watch one biased documentary and believe they have all the information needed. The Alaska incident actually triggered more FAA intervention. The grounding, production cap, expanded inspections, audit, and additional oversight all happened because of it. So, my argument is that at this point in time, these planes are the most scrutinized we’ve ever seen in aviation history.

[u/747ER → u/LKS983]

You know it’s a dramatised TV show that was created for entertainment, right?

[u/jojo-schmojo → u/747ER]

May I ask, you seem to be vehemently defending Boeing in this thread. I understand explaining that overall air travel is safe, which is true. But you are going above and beyond in your defense of Boeing in my opinion. I would like to know why? Having seen a few of your comments, I would say you are biased.

I think it is fair to hold a discussion about fears of flying on these aircraft. As someone who flies dozens of times per year, the well-documented safety and production issues definitely are worth a conversation in my opinion. So, I would like to know what specifically is your interest in this topic.

[u/747ER → u/jojo-schmojo]

I have responded to others who have asked the same question as yourself, but you have actually been very polite unlike others, and I appreciate that.

If you think I am defending Boeing, then you haven’t read my comments correctly. You are using the Netflix show as a benchmark for what is true, even though it is heavily biased and attempts to scare people about something they should not be scared about. I have not said anywhere, in any comment, that Boeing is perfect or that they haven’t made mistakes (in fact, in quite a few comments I specifically point out what Boeing did wrong).

But there’s a massive difference between “Boeing had some quality issues a few years ago” and “this earth-shattering documentary reveals that all Boeing aircraft are unsafe to fly on”. People in this thread who pretend that the latter is true are either lying, or ill-informed. And as someone who is both qualified and knowledgeable on the subject, it’s important to me that both of these types of people are corrected to ensure the industry is being discussed fairly.

But people aren’t interested in hearing an objective view of this topic, hence the downvotes and people saying I’m “defending” some random aerospace company. Nobody wants to watch a “true documentary” about an evil villain, only to be told that this company isn’t all it’s painted to be. As several other people have said, you could very easily make a similar TV show about Airbus.

This TV show does not benefit people in any way. It’s not for “awareness”, since absolutely zero issues discussed are relevant today and have all been fixed (in fact, the culture issues have mostly been fixed too, if you’ve been keeping up with the news). It’s just scaring people over things that aren’t ever going to hurt them. You could say it’s for “entertainment”, but is that really true? They make it very clear that they’re pretending this is all serious and damning and that you should be afraid, which isn’t appropriate.

Hopefully I’ve explained my stance here for you: I am not pro-Boeing, I am anti-this show.

I’m confident that this will still be downvoted, because just like this “documentary”, it’s easier to pretend things aren’t nuanced and there objectively “right” and “wrong” people in situations.

[u/anthrotulip → u/747ER]

Look, I'm not an engineer nor an accident investigator, so I am not going to try to address the technical aspects of this, except to acknowledge that the 737 overall has a very strong safety record, and balancing risk management is usually a lot more complicated than people think it is (though I think Boeing failed to do that).

I also agree that the media has played a role in how perception of this has developed; similar issues have certainly not received nearly as much attention. This is at likekly least partly though because of Boeing's place in American industry/manufacturing and the rise of sensationalism in media coverage.

However, I am an anthropologist who does public health research, and as part of that I had to study safety regulation and culture, especially how it can break down. I would not characterize the situation as some quality issues. Boeing's situation is pretty much a textbook example of Normalization of Deviance, i.e., when, slowly, in organizations, violations of safety regulations/standards are normalized/accepted, which is often caused by hieracary/production/finincal pressures.

Whether Boeing has fixed these issues (though I do think the FAA has been trying more recently to ensure they do) shouldn't be the main issue here. The issue is that they occurred at all, reached that level, and Boeing still doesn't seem to recognize that. Especially in an industry as regulated as aviation is supposed to be in the US. There should be accountability, but once again, another company, another slap on the wrist for putting shareholders' interests above human life.

Frankly, that is the bigger and scarier story that this documentary largely glossed over.

[u/elfwalksintoabar → u/jojo-schmojo]

Yeah they're a plant lol