Downfall: The Case Against Boeing

Rory Kennedy’s new documentary for Netflix is a fascinating and disturbing exposé of the corporate culture of greed.

Director Rory Kennedy (the daughter of Robert F. Kennedy and Ethel Kennedy) has made a name for herself as a celebrated documentarist and winner of many awards (such as Primetime Emmys and an Oscar nomination for 2015’s Last Days in Vietnam). She chooses critical subjects well – for example, The Execution of Wanda Jean dealt with the first black woman to be put to death in the US in modern times, A Boy's Life had a Mississippi family dealing with a disruptive child, Ghosts of Abu Ghraib examined prisoner abuse by US soldiers, and Last Days in Vietnam covered the final weeks of the Vietnam war. Kennedy's latest film, co-written by her husband Mark Bailey, is just as important as it recalls some resoundingly awful truths.

Downfall: The Case Against Boeing charts the major scandal surrounding what was once a successful and much respected company producing some of the best quality aircraft in the world, coupled with an impeccable safety record. However, in October 2018 the Lion Air flight 610, having just left Jakarta, crashed into the Java Sea, killing all its 189 passengers and crew. The airline was blamed, but the Boeing 737 Max jet was not. Some months later another 737 Max jet crashed in Ethiopia taking another 157 lives. A subsequent investigation proved that Boeing was to blame and that a badly designed and faulty component was the cause of the two tragedies.

Before 1997, Boeing was a well-run company which prided itself on a blameless record for safety while caring more for its customers than profit-making. However, when the company merged with McDonnell Douglas the balance sheet became all-important, to the detriment of any other considerations. In a new business plan that involved making cheaper planes and cutting jobs, a corporate culture of concealment and greed was created. Speed held sway over safety and quality. Part of the policy included not having everything double-checked, which meant that fifteen aircraft engineering checkers were reduced to a single one. And any whistleblowers involved in exposing the company's methods were out.

As a result, the faulty anti-stall device called MCAS, or Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System, was installed in the aircraft without the knowledge of any of the pilots, and without any instructions about its usage in the flight manual. If the MCAS sensor device activated itself the pilot had just ten seconds in which to deactivate it and stop the aircraft from going into a nosedive. The reason for not instructing the pilots about any equipment development was because staff training costs more than building a new plane. The upshot was 346 avoidable deaths on their conscience.

Kennedy covers these events and the subsequent investigation with breath-taking lucidity in order to override the appalling attitude of the company's alleged belief that the pilots were at fault. They were just trying to keep Boeing afloat on the stock market and free from their competitors who were increasing their output of aircraft and outstripping Boeing's performance. This is a remarkable documentary that involves a number of talking heads including journalists and politicians and the distressing evidence given by the pilots and their families. It gradually builds into a thorough-going condemnation of a once admirable aircraft company which now looks like Boeing, Boeing - gone...?

MICHAEL DARVELL

Featuring  Andy Pasztor, Garima Sethi, Michael Stumo, Zipporah Kuria, Dennis Tajer, John ‘Swampy’ Barnett, Peter DeFazio, Michael Goldfarb, Chesley Sullenberger, Cynthia Cole, Jon Ostrower, Dan Carey, Rich Ludtke, Donald Trump. 

Dir Rory Kennedy, Pro Mark Bailey, Sara Bernstein, Brian Grazer, Rory Kennedy, Keven McAlester, Amanda Rohlke and Justin Wilkes, Executive Producer Ron Howard, Screenplay Mark Bailey and Keven McAlester, Ph Aaron Gully, Pro Des Amelia Steeley, Ed Don Kleszy, Music Gary Lionelli, Visual Effects Sean Martin and Edward P. Pedersen, Animation Department James Duree, Chad Herschberger and Kerry Deignan Roy. 

Imagine Documentaries/Moxie Films/Moxie-Netflix.
89 mins. USA. 2021. UK and US Rel: 18 February 2022. Available on Netflix. Cert. PG.