If Boeing was seeking to mend its reputation among the general public after numerous public safety incidents, the company sure has a strange way of going about it.
While investigating the in-flight structural failure of the Alaska Airlines flight back in January — the one where the door blew off mid-flight — the National Transportation Safety Board made a troubling discovery.
As seen in this document sent to Sens. Maria Cantwell of Washington and Ted Cruz of Texas by Jennifer Homendy, chairwoman of the NTSB, the board tried to find out from Boeing who worked on the aircraft, specifically the door, at the repair facility the plane was sent to in September of 2023 before it ended up in Alaska.
First, Boeing told the NTSB that the company didn’t have any records documenting the repair work.
Then, when the NTSB investigators made a “verbal request” for the security camera footage of the repair, the investigators “were informed the footage was overwritten.”
Indeed, when perusing the rest of the lengthy reports, it seems Boeing is giving the NTSB absolutely no information regarding who worked on that door plug in September 2023 that ended up failing on that fateful flight four months later.
Homendy said when investigators tried to interview the door crew manager at the facility in Renton, Washington, where Boeing sent the plane for repairs, they were told by the manager’s attorney that he was on medical leave and thus couldn’t be interviewed.
Moreover, as ABC News reported, Homendy continued running into nothing but dead ends regarding who performed the repairs on the defective door plug, telling Cruz and Cantwell in her report that Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun told her that “he was unable to provide that information and maintained that Boeing has no records of the work being performed.”
You could almost sense a feeling of defeat when she told Cruz and Cantwell in the letter that the missing footage “will complicate the NTSB’s investigation.”
Would you feel safe traveling on a Boeing plane?
Boeing insisted in an emailed statement that it will “continue supporting this investigation in the transparent and proactive fashion we have supported all regulatory inquiries into this accident,” according to Axios.
Boeing likewise claimed that the needed security footage was overwritten because, as per “standard practice,” their “video recordings are maintained on a rolling 30 day basis.”
But, together with the growing evidence of severe issues in the production process and the total lack of anyone to speak with who worked on the door plug — well, it’s getting difficult to take them at their word.
The most likely scenario here appears to be a massive culture of incompetence that appears to have been seeping into Boeing’s assembly line.
Regardless of whether they were just following standard procedure, or whether they told the NTSB that to cover up their failure to document repairs, the fact that the footage was overwritten is not going to help their crumbling reputation.
This isn’t the only technical failure a Boeing aircraft has suffered in flight recently.
One recent flight injured about 50 passengers, due to an unknown technical issue that caused the plane to briefly nosedive before leveling off. Another dropped part of its landing gear, including a tire, last week during takeoff. At least two cars were severely damaged, but thankfully they were parked and unoccupied.
Besides all that, Boeing whistleblower John Barnett, a former employee of the company who was in the process of suing Boeing, was found dead from an apparent suicide Saturday after failing to appear for a court date.
Even if Boeing comes up with a totally benign reason for having no documentation of that door plug repair, the company is going to have quite a time convincing the public that it makes customer safety a priority.
In light of such public and catastrophic technical failures, Boeing is going to find a general public resembling Mr. Darcy from “Pride and Prejudice” — their good opinion, once lost, is lost forever.
