Rory Kennedy is resuming her probe into Boeing, in a new documentary with additional claims about the company's manufacturing and culture that she says pose a threat to traveler safety.
“Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing” (streaming now on Netflix) is a sequel to 2022’s “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing,” which examined the pair of 737 MAX 8 crashes in 2018 and 2019 that resulted in 346 deaths. Boeing has admitted fault in these tragedies, attributing the cause of the crashes to a flawed Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS).
“They had indicated to the public and to government that they had changed their ways, they had learned their lessons, that they were no longer going to prioritize profits over people and safety,” Kennedy,
57, tells USA TODAY. “They seemed to make some significant changes that were reassuring, while they were fixing the 737 Max. But pretty soon after, that plane went up into the air [after being cleared by the FAA in 2020], and the government scrutiny stopped, and the regulations pulled back on them. They reverted to their old ways, it seemed, and we were seeing incident after incident.”
She points to the January 2024, Alaska Airlines flight 1282 − a Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet headed from Portland, Ore., to Ontario, Calif., that was forced to make an emergency landing after a door plug blew off as it ascended to 16,000 feet − as an example. Then in March of that year, there was the death of John Barnett. A quality manager for Boeing from 1985-2017, he was a whistleblower who testified about safety issues with the company’s aircraft production and was a prominent part of "Downfall" (also on Netflix). He died of a fatal gunshot wound, in the midst of a deposition for his retaliation lawsuit against Boeing.
The incident with flight 1282, combined with Barnett's death, made Kennedy feel “like we needed to go back in there.”
In a statement to USA TODAY, a spokesperson for Boeing addressed the claims from Kennedy’s latest documentary.
“The allegations in this film have been widely reported over the past several years. Some remain unfounded claims to this day while others are issues that Boeing thoroughly addressed or continues to improve upon under the rigorous oversight of our regulators,” the spokesperson says. “Today, we are grateful that customers, industry experts, policymakers, and our employees are seeing improvements in how we work together and deliver quality products. Our team is working every day to meet our commitments and earn the trust of those who depend on us.”
The documentary also includes a similar statement from the company, which additionally notes, "Under the leadership of our new CEO and with feedback from our employees, we introduced new Values and Behaviors that are strengthening our culture."Here are some of the biggest allegations in the documentary.
Employees say they felt the company pursued profit 'at all costs'
In “Freefall," Kennedy speaks with Barnett’s family members as well as current and former Boeing employees, and follows the fight for justice by the loved ones of the 346 victims who died in the 2018 and 2019 crashes.
“Boeing company was very unique in that if there was ever a dispute, the quality department made the final decision as to whether or not to sign off on the work,” Merle Meyers, a Boeing quality manager from 1979 to 2023, says in the doc, adding that the company’s modus operandi shifted to "pursuit of money at all costs, rather than making the greatest airplane in the world.”
Staff believed Boeing's standards and quality control declined
Barnett, who maintains a presence in the documentary through audio recordings and video from his deposition, says Boeing’s recruiting standards waned.
“Pretty much, we got to where if you knew what a screwdriver was, you were hired by Boeing,” he says, adding that leadership ignored his concerns about inadequate training. “They just wanted product pushed out the door.”
Barnett says concerns he raised were dismissed. He says he brought the issue of metal slivers on the plane, which potentially could short wires and cause a crash, to his manager. “[My boss] said, ‘Ah, it’s going to cost too much and take too much time to clean it.’”
Other employees like Roy Irvin, a quality investigator for Boeing from 2009 to 2020, also took concerns about assembly to his quality manager but was told to "mind your own business."
“It was a major ass-chewing for anybody that would have stopped the process to be able to fix a defect," Irvin recalls in the film. "Those people would be in trouble.”
And when Meyers discovered in 2015 that previously scrapped, corroded landing gear axles made their way onto the Dreamliner production line, he says none of the managers were held accountable.
“These parts, they were basically rotted,” he told Kennedy. “And as I started to research it, I found that scrap parts were put back on the airplane for years and years. We’ll never know the scope of how many of these parts made it to airplanes.”
Boeing allegedly punished whistleblowers
Boeing introduced the Speak Up program to streamline reporting concerns in 2019. But Meyers says when the FAA ungrounded the 737 Max and orders for the model resumed, “It was the schedule-driven chaotic rush again. We were having a lot of problems. We had counted about 50,000 parts that bypassed quality [control] that had escaped to the airplane.”
Meyers says after turning to Speak Up, he was “immediately retaliated against" by the company that told him he'd be "singled out and made an example of."
Sam Salehpour, a Boeing quality engineer since 2007, had a similar experience. After using Speak Up, “My boss came to my desk and chewed me out, and he said, ‘I would have killed someone who said what you said.’ What did I say? I said, ‘We need to consider engineering fundamentals.’”
Salehpour says he was removed from a program to help create the 787 Dreamliner plane and that his tire was slashed: “I didn’t know who did it, but I think that was a warning call.”
Barnett also said claimed that while raising concerns about the safety at Boeing’s South Carolina facility, which manufactures the 787 Dreamliner, he was retaliated against and ostracized.
“The stress and the humiliation and the hostility towards me, it wore me down,” Barnett says in "Freefall." “To have 30 years in an industry where you’re looked at as a go-to guy and just the next day, you’re just the scum of the organization, how do you process it?”
Barnett ultimately retired from Boeing and filed a lawsuit, for which he was deposed on March 8, 2024. During intense questioning, Barnett asked if they could pause and resume the deposition at a later date, but Boeing opposed, so Barnett agreed to continue his deposition the next day. He was discovered deceased in his truck before he could testify again.
Though some suspected foul play, the Charleston County Coroner ruled Barnett’s death a suicide. Security footage included in the documentary shows no one entered or exited Barnett’s truck at the time of his death. The 62-year-old left a note in a Boeing notebook, describing his mental anguish.
“I CAN’T DO THIS ANY LONGER!!! ENOUGH!!” he wrote. “I PRAY THE MOTHERF------ THAT DESTROYED MY LIFE PAY!!!”
"As I learned the circumstances and was able to watch footage from that [deposition]... he seemed so tired and strung out and just exhausted, and he [asked Boeing] 'Can I please take a break? Can I just take a break from this for a beat?' And they said, 'No. You have to keep going, keep going, keep going,’ and then he died," Kennedy says. "I just felt like there was such a lack of humanity, just on a very personal level, which I think people will see when they watch the film."
If you or someone you know may be experiencing a mental health crisis, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline by dialing or texting "988."
If you or someone you know needs help battling a substance abuse addiction, contact the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Service Administration's National Helpline at 1-800-662-HELP (4357).
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Rory Kennedy puts Boeing on blast – Every shocking bombshell from her new doc
