It is difficult not to get angry as watching Netfilx documentary film “Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing”, which was released in last month. As a sequel to the 2022 Netflix documentary “Downfall: The Cast Against Boeing”, the documentary may not surprise you that much if you already watched the previous documentary, but you will soon get quite infuriated as observing how one of the most prominent corporations in US virtually got away with its serious industrial/ethical violations.

During its first half, the documentary gives us a summary on how the Boeing Company has gone down in terms of ethics and quality during last two decades. As already shown from its 2022 predecessor, the company reached for more advance and innovation with its newly appointed CEO Jim McNerney in 2005, but this only came to deteriorate the standards and principles in the company instead. As an ambitious business executive who was influenced a lot by Jack Welch in General Electric, McNerney went all the way for maximizing sale and profit, and he and other Boeing executives were surely ready to minimize the cost in development and manufacture by any means necessary. Although they had any professional knowledge at all from the start, they thought they could spend far less time and money on safety and quality management, and this certainly alarmed many Boeing managers and employees.

However, McNerney and the Boeing executives did not listen as being single-mindedly focused on getting more profit for them as well as Boeing. After hastily presenting a new airplane model called Boeing 737 MAX in 2014, the company busily manufactured airplanes as much as ordered, and several Boeing employees willingly talk about how chaotic and problematic the manufacture process was. For example, just for cutting the cost more, many different parts of those airplanes were made here and there around the world instead of being wholly and thoroughly manufactured in Seatle, Washington, and the company even built a new factory in North Carolina later just for having less union problems.

Needless to say, some of those concerned Boeing employees were willing to step forward for expressing their genuine professional concerns more, but the company still did not listen at all while frequently oppressing them in one way or another. In case of late John Barnett, who worked as one of the Quality Managers in the company, he was frequently bullied and gaslighted by many of his superiors just because he kept reporting on numerous safety problems, and his consequent plight was continued even after he subsequently left the company. As he raised more concern as a whistleblower, he was more cornered and harassed by Boeing and its lawyers, and that was probably the main reason behind his tragic death in 2024.

Meanwhile, what worried Barnett and many other Boeing employees for years eventually led to two big airline disasters. Not long after Lion Air Flight 610 crashed in late 2018, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed in early 2019, and all of the passengers died in both of these two devastating incidents. Incidentally, both of these two airplanes were Boeing 737 MAX, and they were not even that old considering their respective manufacture dates.

It goes without saying that this certainly cornered Boeing and its executives a lot as the families of the victims of these two crash incidents demanded justice and accountability. However, both the US Justice Department and Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) did not do as much as expected. Although its public reputation was considerably damaged, Boeing and its executives were not punished at all, while only promising more measures on safety and manufacture within three years in exchange for not being legally charged for their serious violations.

With its new CEO David Calhoun, Boeing seemed to go through considerable reform, but, not so surprisingly, it just kept going for more profit as usual while oppressing anyone raising safety concern inside the company a lot more than before. As a consequence, the systemic problems inside the company only got worse, and that was why several other Boeing employees besides Barnett came forward in public. Although they were all aware of the considerable risk of being a whistleblower, they could not possibly look away from what they had seen in the company, and they were all the more motivated by Barnett’s sudden death (The documentary made it quite clear to us that he did kill himself mainly because of the stress and pressure resulted from his legal struggle with Boeing).

The documentary also focuses on some of those unfortunate people who lost their loved ones due to the aforementioned airplane crash incidents. As often interacting with a number of Boeing whistleblowers, they kept urging the US Justice Department and FAA to do much more for preventing any more disaster from Boeing airplanes, but their sincere requests were mostly ignored, and there is a bitter irony in how the systemic problems inside Boeing drew a lot of public attention again a few years ago.

Overall, “Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing” is a solid sequel documentary to its 2022 predecessor, and director/co-producer Rory Kennedy, who directed the 2022 documentary and is also known for making several notable documentaries including “Last Days in Vietnam” (2014), handles her main subject with considerable respect and care. Sadly, nothing much is done about the systemic problems inside Boeing even at this point while those executives responsible for that are still untouched with all the money they unethically earned, and I will not be surprised at all if there comes another documentary to follow this ongoing story of corruption and injustice.