Downfall: L'affaire Boeing

"Downfall: The Case Against Boeing" (2022 release; 98 min.) opens with a clever montage of the good ol' days when Boeing enjoyed a stellar reputation for its safety record. We then go to "Jakarta, Indonesia" flight 160 is taking off, and things go horribly wrong, crashing minutes after takeoff. The widow of the flight's captain recounts the events of the day. At this point we are 10 min into the film.

Couple of comments: this is the latest from veteran documentarian Rory Kennedy ("Ghosts of Abu Ghraib"). Here she reassesses what led to not one, but two Boeing 737 MAX crashes within months of each other. More in particular, we are shown how a company's culture started changing from "safety at any cost" to "profit at any cost" after Boeing merges with McDonnell Douglas in 1996. Along the way, we get a Boeing 101 history lesson on how a company so identified with Seattle lost the plot and moved its HQ to Chicago (in 2001). There are plenty of talking heads, none more so than Wall Street Journal airline industry specialist Andy Pasztor, who exposes it all, damning article after damning article. When Boeing finally settles the FAA defrauding charges for $2.5 billion dollars, we now know what the worth is of a human life for Boeing: you divide that by the number of people (349) killed in the 2 crashes, and you come to about $7 million per perished person. Bottom line: while this documentary doesn't contain any new revelation as such, it nevertheless is nothing short of a blistering indictment of Boeing and its management.

"Downfall: The Case Against Boeing" premiered on Netflix just the other day. If you are in the mood to witness firsthand how one of America's erstwhile most treasured companies falls from grace in its never-ending pursuit of "increasing shareholder value", I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

Boeing CEO Dennis A. Muilenburg resigns and walks away with $62 million. It's a wonderful world. And that's how everything works in this country: it's all for the money. Only money matters. 346 people died because Boeing executives only care about money.

What a truly fascinating watch this was, a documentary that truly does not hold back. As someone that follows the news with interest, I remember watching news of both tragic crashes with horror, and in both cases, it was definitely the theory that both were due to pilot error, this gives you the true story.

It's almost brutal, it really does put Boeing, and its executives, indeed its company ethos to the sword, initially I thought the documentary focused too much on Boeing's history, but in hindsight it's all in context, it's all fully relevant, and all explained.

The eighties were amazing in so many ways, awful in others, definitely the era of greed, in The UK we had Thatcher, for The U. S. Wall Street, you will see here the consequences of a Company for whom the only focus is profit.

The camera footage of the worker being told about missing parts is on of the most shocking things I've seen for some time.

It's very well made, with some fascinating interviews, it's more on the factual side that the sensational side.

A fascinating documentary, 9/10.

A complex story well told. Bare faced greed of senior management ends up in deaths. As usual, the worst part is lengths people go to engage in a cover up.

This movie is good as far as it goes but stops short of illuminating a missing link in the chain of failure that killed hundreds of people. Boeing took a calculated risk and were tragically wrong as far as the 737 Max redesign. Every transportation business faces a cost - benefit analysis in the production of their vehicles, The government is charged with the responsibility of ensuring the safety of these vehicles prior to certifying them for use. In this case the agency responsible is the FAA. It would be safe to assume air travel carries the heaviest burden for any agency other than perhaps the FDA. With this in mind one would think that only the best trained people would be placed in leadership of such an important agency. This is not the case, not even close. Boeing's redesign of the 737 was carried out and certified under the directorship of Michael Huerta at. The FAA. Mr. Huerta's education is listed in Wikipedia as: "Huerta received his bachelor's degree in political science from the University of California, Riverside and his master's in international relations from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University." If as a casual observer you question how much a political science major knows about the intricacies of the aerospace industry, you hit the core issue. Huerta could easily be called a political appointment without the technical knowledge to lead an agency as vital as the FAA. This type of appointment was neither rare previously nor has it been changed today. The latest director has the following education as listed by Wikipedia: Homendy is a native of Plainville, Connecticut. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Pennsylvania State University and is a master's candidate at Clemson University. Notice the absence of what degrees she achieved, she is purely a political appointment. Neither of these people have the expertise to lead a safety agency.

Clearly Boeing failed it's workers, investors, and the flying public. They will be held accountable and pay dearly for their mistakes. Unfortunately this movie missed the elephant in the room, our safety agencies need to be cleared of political appointments and experts installed in those positions. Your life is in the hands of people profiting from placing you in danger. They exist in both the industry and in the agencies responsible for protecting you.