Flight/Risk

Flight/Risk is directed from the perspective of a journalist-and as a journalistic effort I give it two enthusiastic thumbs up.

The documentary examines the back-to-back deadly crashes of Boeing 737 MAX airplanes, first near Indonesia and five months later in Ethiopia.

Whistleblowers, a journalist and others seek to hold Boeing accountable for the loss of human life, and contend that the 300+ lives lost were due to economic concerns rather than pilot safety.

The documentary follows a journalist at the Seattle Times as he seeks to piece together the mismanagement and indecision at Boeing that may have impacted the ultimate decision by the FAA to ground all MAX planes. A lawyer representing the plaintiffs and victims is also followed as he seeks justice.

The documentary is very good and shot in 4K UHD, and reveals the complacency and-yes-culpability of the Federal government and its regulators in the hierarchy of accountability.

The movie poses some serious questions about the impact that Wall Street and the Dow Jones Industrial Average has on management decisions at American megacorporations.

The documentary is based on two airplane accidents between 2018-2019 were almost 300 hundred people died.

The point here is the why. Were those planes ready to flight?

The documentary shows the raw reality of the family of the victims and the long justice battle of them and helped by an important ex Boeing worker, trying to make justice.

But there is a problem, the huge and powerful company tries to avoid any responsibility.

The documentary is pretty well done and it shows perfectly the point. Could have been better but could have been worse. I like it. I buy most of the story and now I understand the power of big corporations like Boeing, and their priorities. Money first. Security next.

Films like this tug at your emotions. Afterall, how dare a huge corporate entity, with government oversight, murder hundred of people with the potential to kill many more? Well, if every story has multiple sides this film pretty much narrows it down to incriminating Boeing, only topically exploring the hubris, callousness, and possible criminal actions of the Boeing corporate management.

No one went to jail curiously...and, I deduce by various sources on the web, the lawyers for the victims made off individually much better than bereaved relatives. As dark as the corporate greed was, it turns a blind eye to the equally questionable supposed compensation process.

The viewer, and I believe, victims would be better served by a surgical and methodical look into the many aspects creating the perfect storm where Boeing went from being the premier producer of safe and dependable aircraft to a company making sub-standard, and un-safe, aircraft in service of milking Wall Street, and airline clients, for obscenely massive monetary gain.

This was preventable, yet all of the early employees sounding quality control issues were literally erased by Boeing (see an pre-Max expose on CBS 60-Minutes where alarm bells over the 787 "Dreamliner" quality predicted future deadly crashes). In this film we see a few latter-day Boeing employee whistleblowers - basically too little, too late to stop the deadly wheels already in motion. The whole terrible tragedy could have been caught earlier, much earlier. This is a big ommission to a better understanding of a deadly corporate climate.

As such, Flight/Risk simply makes Boeing look evil and the lawyers seeking compensation like some kind of saints. I hardly believe this serves the victims in the most reverent sense. And, the Max is back in the air, perhaps safer, yet still highly flawed, which no one seems to want to explore in depth. Something still smells bad in this whole terrible tragedy and this film ignores it. Maybe one day a really hard-hitting, courageously in-depth probe will tell a more balanced accounting. One that truly exposes how a revered and respected Boeing became a criminal organization able to reduce the FAA to the level of a lachey accomplice.

Boeing is one of those "too big to fail" or "too big to be held accountable" companies impart thanks to the total ineptitude of the FAA.

Not a single person fired or punished? Both of them operate much like the law enforcement in America.... they regulate and investigate themselves - with no serious oversight to hold them accountable.

Extremely informative and distressing documentary. By the end I was left with the complete certainty that this will happen again and again.

A highlight of the documentary is watching the lawyers for the families relentlessly championing for them. The Seattle reporter who didn't stop till the truth is uncovered. And the young woman in the UK who lost her father. She handles her grief with such strength and grace.

My disappointment with Boeing and FAA is slightly less maddening knowing there are people out there that are still honest, ethical and are doing what's RIGHT instead of what they want.

Never seen the other side of Boeing until these 2 crashes and this documentary takes you on a ride with the people who showed the other side of Boeing and the FAA with so much depth. These people really bought justice if not full justice to the victim's families. The main culprit's are the CEO FAA and the Senior managers who managed to escape. I hope Boeing and FAA has learned from their mistakes and prevent this incident in the future. Being an Avgeek I never thought Boeing will go for such an extent for Profits at the cost of 346 innocent lives. This documentary really shows the pain of the victim's families. The Best Documentary I've ever seen hand's down.