Boeing: The Fall of a Giant

More than half the world’s airlines are Boeings. But a series of dramatic accidents involving Boeing planes have raised questions over their safety. So what’s really going on inside Boeing’s factories? Should we be afraid of flying on their planes? 

From the fatal crash in South Korea, when the landing gear failed to deploy, to a door blowing off an Alaska Airlines plane mid-flight or a tyre coming off during takeoff on a Toronto-Paris flight, 2024 was a horrible year for the company. In July, the company even agreed to plead guilty to criminal fraud conspiracy charge resulting from the fatal 2018 & 2019 crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia (the criminal case was later dropped by the Trump administration). According to government statistics, Boeing aircraft have been involved in nearly 6,000 aviation accidents and incidents worldwide, resulting in over 9,000 deaths.

Exclusive testimonies from employees and whistleblowers reveal serious manufacturing problems. Many workers date the start of the problems to Boeings merger with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Production soared but many of the former Boeing workers no longer identified with this new corporate culture. The 737 Max, in particular, has been plagued by numerous issues.  “They produced this aircraft extremely quickly in its design and testing phase” states one pilot.  ‘You wonder, what new problems are we going to discover’. Another whistleblower, who worked as quality inspector for the 737 Max, estimates there are still 1,600 737 MAX aircraft in service today that could have technical faults. According to current employees, these problems are still ongoing. “The public need to know what’s happening in there. To force our regulators to act.”