All language subtitles for Freefall.A.Reckoning.for.Boeing.2026.NF.WEB.h264-EDITH.en[sdh]

[solemn music playing]

[man] Going against a big company
like Boeing does not happen every day.

[beeps]

[woman] Raise your right hand.

Do you solemnly swear the testimony
you're about to give is the truth,

the whole truth and nothing but the truth?

I do.

Boeing will fight you to the bitter end.

So what he was instructing people to do
was violate rules and regulations

that they could be actually held liable,
criminally charged for.

We could very well be putting
the public at risk.

The intensity of the implications
of what he was testifying about

made me take a pause.

John was a brave guy for speaking out.

But I personally thought to myself
that this shit could get somebody killed.

[thunder rumbles]

We were scheduled for John to continue
the deposition the next morning.

[solemn music continues]

But at ten o'clock,
John had not arrived yet.

So I called the hotel…

[phone ringing]

…and asked to be put through to his room.

And the phone just rang.

I asked if someone can go up

and do a check
to see if he was still sleeping.

They said, "No, he's not there."

I asked, "Is his truck outside?"

And the manager came back on the phone
and said she had gone out to his truck

and looked at him from the passenger side.

And that's when she called 911.

[solemn music fades]

-[siren wailing]
-[dramatic music playing]

[reporter 1] Boeing has given the world
yet another reason to fear flying.

Several of the company's
new Dreamliner planes have caught on fire.

[reporter 2] One of the Boeing 777's
engines failed minutes after takeoff.

[man] And this is my parents' house
after a 777 engine blew up in the sky.

[reporter 3] A hundred
and twenty-nine passengers were evacuated.

Five people were injured.

[reporter 4] Fifty injured
after a flight lost control midair.

[reporter 5] One passenger
was killed from an explosion.

[reporter 6] These are incredibly
dangerous things that continue to happen.

[reporter 7] When you see news story
after news story, incident after incident,

you wonder how Boeing is still in the air.

[dramatic music continues]

[music fades]

I'm that kid that still looks up
at airplanes every time I hear one.

"Oh my God!" [chuckles] Yeah.

I always loved aviation.

[intriguing music playing]

My dad worked on a F-14.

So I always would go to the gates
and watch the airplanes fly off.

Growing up in the Seattle area,
I always thought

that I would eventually work at Boeing.

I was very happy when Boeing recruited me
out of school.

Boeing was a fantastic company.

If you had your Boeing shirt on, people
would come up to you and talk to you.

It was just a sense of pride.

[engine rumbles]

[launch announcer] We have ignition.
We have liftoff.

[man 1] I was a rocket scientist
for a long time,

but I wanted to move to airplanes.

And I wanted to work

in the best airplane manufacturer
in the world.

[reporter 1] Over a century, Boeing
transformed travel across the globe.

[reporter 2] The biggest
aerospace company in the world.

Really, I was proud working for Boeing.

I'm still proud working for Boeing.

[man 2] Boeing changed my life.

We were really poor growing up.

And the financial trajectory
just totally changed.

Working at Boeing, to have a job there,
it was really a badge of honor.

[dramatic music playing]

[narrator] This is Boeing.
They build airplanes.

And always there is one idea,

make everything just a little better
than it really needs to be.

[Meyers] 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.

-[man] Okay, so we're ready to go, right?
-Yes.

You had, like, two or three eyes
on everything that you did

to just make sure it was accurate.

I don't think that's gonna work.
I really don't.

[Mohawk] Back in those days,
quality was the brakes of the system.

If there was a problem,
quality managers stopped the line.

Management had your back.

-Have the guys stand by till we're ready.
-Okay.

-[drill whirs]
-[dramatic music continues]

Then all of a sudden,
that whole atmosphere changed.

So what is it like to be the CEO?
To arrive? What's day one there?

What did you find
when you arrived at Boeing?

The approach was to start
at the beginning.

That the culture needed
a ground-up discussion.

-[continues indistinctly]
-[man 1] The decline of Boeing.

You can trace a lot of it right back
to the hiring of the CEO, Jim McNerney.

He seemed the perfect candidate.

He had gone to Yale to do his BA
and gone to Harvard to do his MBA.

Jim McNerney looked like a U.S. senator
from central casting.

[man 2] Jim McNerney was
a long-time executive at General Electric

and a protégé of arguably the most
influential CEO of the 20th century,

a man named Jack Welch.

I'm part, like so many others are,
of an American dream.

[Gelles] Jack Welch was
the first CEO of a major American company

to focus on maximizing profits
at all costs.

He was quick to institute outsourcing,
offshoring, mass layoffs.

[Welch] The best thing
you can do to an employee,

as early as you know
they're the bottom ten, let them know.

Famously, Jack Welch at GE
would let the bottom 10% go every year.

Always have people nervous
about their jobs.

[Gelles] With all of these strategies,
Jack Welch turned GE

into the most valuable company
in the world.

The kind of company that
almost every other American corporation

looked up to.

And the Boeing board was no exception.

I knew I wanted to run something.
I didn't know what it was.

[Gelles] When McNerney takes over,
Boeing goes all in

on the Jack Welch-style
"profits above all else."

[intriguing music playing]

He was also now tasked
with developing a new airplane.

[reporter] The new 787
hasn't been built yet,

but Boeing is so certain
of its creature comforts,

it calls it the Dreamliner.

[Gates] To design and build the 787,

it was going to cost
approximately $10 billion.

But the Boeing board
didn't want to spend that.

[computer beeps]

[printer buzzes]

A source gave me internal documents

showing that Boeing's plan
was to build this plane for $5 billion,

half of what it would normally have cost.

[intriguing music continues]

[Meyers] Boeing was always known
for the engineering

and the building of their airplanes.

The real big shift was during the 787.

We found out
that they were going to be outsourcing

major sections of the airplane
to save money.

[Irvin] Mid-body section
was built in Italy.

[Salehpour] Wings and batteries
from Japan.

[Meyers] From South Korea,
wingtips and the aft fuselage parts.

The outsourcing was
almost the entire airplane.

[Mohawk] You knew that was gonna have
a direct effect on safety and quality.

We no longer have the immediate control
about the safety of those parts.

We just have to accept what is given to us
and put them on the airplane.

[Gates] Parts started coming in
from these suppliers…

[solemn music playing]

…and the plan was the plane
would be snapped together in three days.

The first time Boeing joined
the two fuselage barrels together,

somebody sent me a picture.

-[camera clicking]
-[solemn music continues]

There was a huge gap between the two.

The problem was
that some of these companies

couldn't do what Boeing hired them to do.

They couldn't produce
the parts they were supposed to produce.

It went horrible.

Too much of the airplane was outsourced.

Nothing snapped together.

And the delays
were just one after the other.

So Boeing wanted to build
a second 787 assembly line

in an effort to increase production.

[intriguing music playing]

Boeing had started in Seattle

and had never built a plane anywhere else.

[Gelles] This was a place where Boeing had

perhaps the most skilled aviation
manufacturing workforce in the world.

But it was largely unionized.

And McNerney hated unions.

They cost Boeing more money.

And now in 2009, he's saying,

"Well, we're gonna build
a second 787 line in South Carolina."

I am always proud to say
we don't have unions in South Carolina

because we don't need unions
in South Carolina.

[crowd applauding, cheering]

[Gelles] This was, again,
Boeing leadership making decisions,

not in the name of safety
but in the name of cost savings,

in the name of corporate profits.

What have you learned from your engineers

about bringing it back
and reconstructing the old Boeing

that we all grew up with?

Well, we're not going back
to the old Boeing.

-[man] Five, four, three, two, one.
-[crowd] …two, one.

-[man] Cut!
-[crowd cheers]

[Gates] When Boeing set up
the plants in South Carolina,

there was no aviation business there.

And so, of course, they didn't have
experienced workers.

They constantly were sending experts
from the Seattle area.

[solemn music playing]

John Barnett was one of them.

[beeps]

When I first started with Boeing,

a group of us were standing around
and talking about where you're from.

I was telling them
that I'm from Louisiana.

One of my buddies popped off,

"Well, you're just an old swamp dog
from Louisiana, ain't you?" [laughs]

You know, from then on, I was "Swampy."

[laughs]

I was a quality manager
in Seattle for 15 years.

I was actually
one of the first quality managers

brought down to Charleston
to help set up the new Dreamliner site.

As a quality manager, it's my job
to make sure the airplane's built right.

John was a solid quality man,
an airplane man.

We were both quality managers.

We were good friends.

I used to buy gator tail
by the pound from John

'cause he was a Louisiana boy.

[Barnett] Me being a Southern man,

South Carolina was my opportunity
to get close to my family.

We always said he was loud and proud.

You knew when he walked in the room
because he was loud. [laughs]

-Yeah, Swamp Dog.
-[chuckles]

[man] When I moved to Charleston
and met John Barnett,

I could see that we were
from the same cloth,

that quality doesn't take
a back seat to anything.

[intriguing music playing]

John and I really got to know each other
through our recruitment trips.

We would interview
in excess of 100 people in a week.

We were told from the beginning

they didn't want
the union influence in Charleston.

And part of the agreement
that Boeing made with South Carolina

was they would hire
the majority of the employees locally.

We was doing job fairs.

We were hiring people
straight out of college.

Pretty much we got to where
if you knew what a screwdriver was,

you was hired by Boeing.

[man 1] What do you think
about the people here?

[man 2] They fucking suck.

[man 1] They suck. Not everyone of course.

[man 2] Not everyone, but the majority
of them here fucking suck.

[man 1] They're just punching a clock,
that's my opinion.

[man 2] Yeah, it's all they do.

[Barnett] I went to my leadership
and said,

"These people aren't being trained
the way they should."

"Nothing about procedures,
FAA requirements."

"They're just being trained
how to rubber-stamp paperwork."

But my leadership,
they didn't care about training.

They just wanted product
pushed out the door.

Charleston had a workforce
that simply didn't know how to construct

one of the most complicated machines
in the world.

Mistakes started piling up
almost immediately.

[solemn music playing]

[Seitz] I was walking through
the production facility,

and I heard a very loud pounding.

[metallic pounding]

As I got closer, I witnessed
a manager taking a sledgehammer

to pound a pin in a landing gear.

I thought to myself,
I need to record what's going on here.

I took that camera
and showed John Barnett.

[solemn music continues]

[Barnett] You don't use a sledgehammer
to put together an airplane.

The fuse pin had to be just beat to hell.

And actually, back in the '90s,
we had issues with those pins,

cracking from fatigue.

[reporter] The Israeli El Al jet
slammed into the building Sunday

after two engines fell off.

Boeing, the company that built
the jumbo jet, is now urging all airlines

to inspect the pins that hold the engines
to the wings of 747s.

[Barnett] There's so many possibilities
for fractures in that, it's unreal.

John said, "Man, you gotta take this
to upper management."

I expected them to reprimand this manager
and make it right.

Instead, I was instructed
to get rid of the video.

[camera beeping]

[solemn music continues]

I was sent off-site to keep me
from investigating what was going on.

It seemed like a way to tell us
production is gonna move on

whether we wanted them to or not.

[McNerney] You've got to end up
being better and reaching higher.

So it's not a matter
of hanging around a hot tub

and everybody feeling good
about the conversation.

Uh, there's an element
of push, leadership, uh,

and stretch, uh, provided by the boss.

[tense music playing]

[Gates] Jim McNerney was laser-focused

on meeting the schedule
at the lowest cost.

And so any delays in production
were not to be countenanced.

[man] Here, everybody's being pushed
to meet this fucking schedule,

regardless of quality.

[Irvin] If the airplane was not finished
as quickly as possible,

it would hurt the manager's bonuses.

At the time, I was inspecting an airplane.

I saw a hole in the aft body join,

and the fastener that was in there
was not the right size.

I had concerns with what I'd seen.

[tense music builds]

They've lost airplanes
with fasteners like that.

I raised it to my quality manager,

and he said, "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.

Those people would be in trouble.

[man] It's my pleasure to welcome you
to the certification ceremony

for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

[crowd applauding]

[Gates] After the rollout
of the Dreamliner,

Boeing was in financial trouble.

[pensive music playing]

And it didn't want to invest
in another all-new design.

Because investing in a new plane
is an awful lot of money.

[reporter 1] Boeing finds itself facing
turbulence by a foreign rival

with some very big ambitions.

[reporter 2] Airbus has received
the good-to-go.

The A320neo has the thumbs-up.

[Gates] Then Airbus announced
it would put new fuel-efficient engines

on its most popular jet

that would save
something like 20% of the fuel cost.

[reporter 2] Customers have ordered
over 4,300 of the planes.

[reporter 3] Airbus has simply been
cleaning Boeing's clock.

Jim McNerney freaked out.

They needed to develop a new airplane.

[Gates] Boeing was tending towards
an all-new replacement for the 737.

But that would have taken years.

Jim McNerney made
a really rushed decision.

[Gates] McNerney decided,
"Let's just do the simple thing

and put new fuel-efficient engines
on the existing 737."

And that becomes the 737 MAX.

[tense music playing]

[Gates] As soon as they announced this,
it began to have really heavy sales.

[reporter 1] Massive order
that Southwest Airlines will be placing.

[reporter 2] Lion Air Group has purchased
50 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft.

We've got an order book
as far as the eye can see.

[reporter 1] Big relief for Boeing.

And that meant profits for shareholders.

-Jim McNerney. [chuckles]
-Thank you.

[Gelles] And a lot of money for the CEO.

Ah!

[tense music continues]

[Gelles] In 2015,
when Jim McNerney stepped down,

he'd made hundreds of millions of dollars

and took home
many tens of millions in retirement.

I'm sure when he left, he thought,
"Wow, I did a great job."

"Look at the stock price now."

[tense music crescendos, fades]

And because cost-cutting
looked successful,

it was gonna continue to happen
even after he left.

[tense music resumes]

[Gelles] When McNerney stepped down,

the board installed
his hand-picked successor,

a man named Dennis Muilenburg.

[Gates] Before he took over, Muilenburg
shadowed McNerney for 18 months.

And I think, in that time,
McNerney pointed out to him

all these things he'd been doing
that were so successful financially

and told him, "Keep it up."

So he did.

[man 1] Shares of Boeing
continuing to soar.

[man 2] Were you surprised watching
your stock price move up parabolically?

I don't say that I was surprised.
We had promised production ramp-up.

We're now delivering on that ramp-up.

Which I guess deserves a higher multiple.

-That's what I'm thinking.
-We'll talk a lot about commercial but…

When Muilenburg came in,
I thought, "Well, nothing changes."

And actually, it gets worse.

[ominous music playing]

One day, I was called down
to the Dreamliner.

We found all these metal slivers

on all this electronic wiring
under the floorboard.

As they were installing the floorboards,

it's peeling the threads
off of these fasteners.

Well, over time, this metal sliver's
gonna vibrate down in there,

and it's gonna short wires out.

[electricity zapping]

It's been known that just a little short

will bring down a whole plane.

[whistling]

[ominous music builds]

[pilot] Swissair 111,
we have smoke in the cockpit.

Uh, request immediate return.

[Barnett] Swissair Flight 111
had a chafed wire

in an entertainment system,

caused a fire
and brought down the whole plane.

Killed everybody on board.

[reporter] We're about 6,000 feet,
hovering above the wreckage.

[Barnett] TWA Flight 800
had a chafed wire in the fuel tanks,

blew it out of the sky.

[solemn music playing]

There's something like 20,000
of these fasteners

on a 787 Dreamliner.

We're looking at
potentially 60,000 slivers

flying around on these wires.

So I brought it up to my boss.

And he said, "Ah, it's gonna cost too much
and take too much time to clean it."

How much is it gonna cost
and how much time is it gonna take

if one of these planes goes down
with 350 people on board?

[solemn music continues]

I said, "I will not put
my name on this airplane

saying it's safe and airworthy."

But they didn't want to hear it.

And after that, they moved me
about every four or six months

just to mess with me.

And every time I'd move
and get put in a different area,

I'd find some major issue.

[music fades]

[man 1] I just wanted to ask
your opinion, man.

My in-laws are gonna fly on one of these.

Do you think they're safe?

[man 2] They're just
your in-laws. [laughs]

[man 1] Would you fly on one?

[man 2] No.

[man 1] I got a free vacation.

[woman] What's that?

[man 1] You just have to fly on a 787.

-[woman] Shit.
-[man 1] What?

[woman] No, we ain't going
on no vacation on a 787.

You know what be going on on the 787?

[man 1] What happens?

[woman] What don't happen?

[man 3] I wouldn't fly on one
of these planes. Because I see the quality

of the fucking shit
going down around here.

[ominous music playing]

[Barnett] Charleston is the first plant
I've ever heard

where the majority of the people
working on the plane will not fly on it.

If your own people do not have
enough confidence to fly on the product,

why are you letting it
go out the door to the flying public?

[jet engines humming]

The Charleston plant, we thought,
it's a totally different culture

than up here in Seattle.

But in 2015, the alarm bells went off

when I uncovered
that some corroded 787 landing gear axles

that we had previously scrapped,
spray-painted red with the word "scrap,"

wound up being used
back in the Dreamliner production line.

These parts, they were basically rotted.

And as I started to research it,
I found that scrap parts

were put back on the airplane
for years and years.

[ominous music intensifies]

We'll never know the scope of how many
of these parts made it to airplanes.

Boeing has delivered
over 1,200 Dreamliners.

The fleet operates
across more than 85 countries

with one billion passengers.

And so we had
a corporate investigation launched.

Not one manager was fired
or went to jail or got time off.

It's like it was
just part of the business.

I don't know what it means
for the thousands of planes flying around.

At this point, it's anyone's guess.

[music fades]

This new Boeing, the way they treat people
and their quality managers

is ruining the entire company.

And that scares me.

Scares me to death.

[Stokes] John would come home worried.

He said, "You know, I just can't believe
that they just don't understand."

I could see later on
that it was starting to really get to him.

[Barnett] I had to seriously think
about going to human resources,

because at Boeing,
when you go to HR, now you're a target.

I knew from past history
and other incidents

that chances are
Boeing's gonna fire you on the spot.

They're gonna confiscate your computer.
They're gonna confiscate your cell phone.

They're gonna confiscate
all your documents.

So now you're a terminated employee

who gets blacklisted
from an entire industry.

[solemn music playing]

So I'm scared of what they're gonna do.

But putting the flying public in danger,
this is unacceptable.

I decided I'm going to just fight them.

So I went to human resources.

I told them they're violating procedures.

HR said, "Yep, you're right."

They wouldn't do anything to correct it.

So I filed an ethics complaint.

Nothing.

I wrote a letter to the VP
of Corporate Ethics in Washington, D.C.

Executives didn't do anything.

I filed a complaint with OSHA.

I went to FAA,
the Oversight Enforcement Organization,

to get these issues taken care of.

[solemn music continues]

It's like, does anybody care?

Or is it gonna take an airplane
to go down before some people say,

"Wow, I guess we should have listened."

[woman] I remember waking up
on the Sunday morning.

I had the two kids next to me,
so I said, you know,

it would be nice for him
to… to see a picture of the kids.

So I took a little selfie shot
of… of the two kids

saying, "Good morning, Daddy,"
and, you know, lots of emojis.

[text message pops]

[swooshes]

I noticed that the message
hadn't delivered,

which I thought was a little bit unusual.

But I put it down to maybe bad signal
in… in Addis Ababa.

Mick was traveling, doing a lot of work
with the United Nations.

He always had this desire to help people.

[pensive music playing]

A number of hours later,
I picked up my phone,

and there was still no reply from him,

but there was a load of missed calls
from… from a friend of mine.

[phone line ringing]

So I rang our friend, he said,
"Naoise, have you seen the news?"

"There's been a plane crash."

And then he said,
"I think Mick is on the plane."

And I said, "No. No."

[reporter] An Ethiopian Airlines flight
has crashed shortly after takeoff,

killing all 157 passengers and crew
thought to be on board.

[Naoise] It's like time stood still.

People don't just disappear
from your life.

They're there one minute,
and then they're not.

But that's what happened.

He wa… he was gone.

I suppose, being an engineer,
that's where my brain kicked in,

and I started to research.

[somber music playing]

[reporter 1] Boeing faces
a lot of safety questions this morning

because this is
the second crash in just five months.

[reporter 2] The Lion Air flight
crashed off the coast of Indonesia

with almost 200 people on board.

[people crying]

[Naoise] I learned this wasn't even
the first MAX crash.

Brand-new planes falling from the sky,
you know, twice.

How could this be?

I wanted answers.

[dramatic music playing]

[reporter 1] An emergency order
grounding all Boeing MAX 8s and 9s.

[reporter 2] The FAA grounded the planes
until their safe use has been confirmed.

[reporter 3] The focus in the two crashes
quickly zeroed in

on a new system called MCAS.

[reporter 4] Powerful MCAS software can
take over the plane's controls in flight.

[reporter 5] That left pilots powerless.

[reporter 6] Boeing withheld
crucial information from the FAA,

its customers, and 737 MAX pilots.

[reporter 7] The FAA estimated
that 15 more MAX planes

would crash over the next few decades.

Boeing and its CEO knew
that the flawed system was a safety risk,

yet they told the public
MAX was as safe as any airplane

that has ever flown the skies.

[Naoise] The more I learned,
the more I realized

that everything was so wrong

and that we needed to push for justice.

[dramatic music continues]

My kids are aware
that their dad got on a plane,

and the plane was made by bad guys.

My son asked me,
"Will we catch the bad guys?"

And I said, "I don't know.
We'll have to wait and see."

[music fades]

[Mohawk] After the 737 MAX crashes,

everyone in our factory
was in a state of shock.

We take our work seriously,
especially the work quality,

that we're signing off on a good product.

And I was devastated.

Um…

[somber music playing]

Can I get a sec? Sorry.

[Meyers] Emotionally, it was a dark cloud,

I think, for everybody.

[somber music continues]

Because what are we doing?

Why are we in this field?

And why do we rush?

[Mohawk] It impacts you.

Every day we spend doing our work,
we're concerned for the flying public, so…

[emotional music playing]

[Meyers] We were upset about the families,

and especially watching them
with the big pictures of their loved ones.

That's hard for anybody,

but a Boeing employee,
that was very hard to watch.

[woman 1] My daughter was a humanitarian.

She had decided
to dedicate her life to other people.

It was actually her first day of work.

[woman 2] Why did we have to wake up
to get a call

that our two boys
were on a plane that crashed?

[man] Our daughter, Samya,
was headed to East Africa

on her way to start her career
in public health.

What got me the angriest of all
was reading the Boeing lawyers

saying that the families
don't deserve, uh, compensation

for the pain and suffering
that their loved ones went through.

They said it happened so fast,

the victims didn't know what was going on.

I think about
their last six minutes a lot.

My wife and my mom-in-law
knew they were going to die.

They had to somehow comfort the children
during those final moments,

knowing they were all their last.

I wish I was there with them.

It never leaves me that my family's flesh
is there in Ethiopia,

mixed with the soil, the jet fuel,
and pieces of the aircraft.

[dramatic sting]

In the months after the second crash,
Muilenburg is on the hot seat.

Finally, in December of 2019,
Muilenburg is fired.

[solemn music playing]

But even though he had presided
over two devastating crashes,

which had killed hundreds of people,

he made about $120 million as CEO

and left with a retirement package
worth approximately $60 million.

He was immediately replaced

by the chairman of the board,
Dave Calhoun.

Calhoun was a seasoned executive.

He'd been on the board
for ten years at this point.

[reporter] Boeing entering a new era.

David Calhoun taking over as CEO.
It happens today.

At the same time,
there were multiple investigations.

The House was very aggressive.

We shouldn't have to have tragedies
to change the rules

if the rules need to be changed.

We shouldn't have to be here today.

And the DOJ pursued
a possible criminal case.

Nobody knew what legal consequences
Boeing would face.

[music fades]

It was two years into the investigations
of the MAX crashes,

I was in my mother-in-law's house,

and we were talking about Mick.

-[indistinct newscast]
-The news was on in the background.

[reporter 1] We have
some breaking news on Boeing.

Suddenly, Boeing is mentioned,

and you kind of stop in your tracks,
and you're listening to it.

Boeing has entered
into a deferred prosecution agreement

regarding the 737 MAX.

And I'm… I'm like,
"What… what the hell? What… what's this?"

You know,
"What's a deferred prosecution agreement?"

This charge will be essentially dismissed
after three years

if Boeing meets all of the stipulations
in this agreement.

This essentially ends
the criminal investigation, if you will,

by the DOJ looking into what Boeing did.

And… and I went, no way, 346 lives lost.

Brand-new planes falling from the sky.

Somebody's got something wrong here.
This can't be true.

[reporter 2] Does that also end
any threats

to individual executives at Boeing?

[reporter 3] Apparently.

We'll get them to pay a fine.
We'll tell them that they're on probation.

If after three years, you've been really,
really good, you get a clean slate.

It's like it never happened.

The CEO should have been prosecuted.

Instead, they wrote that senior management

knew nothing about what was going on.

[reporter 3] There are
a couple of terms within there

in terms of things
that Boeing has to meet.

[Naoise] It is utter disbelief
that somebody could get away

with killing 346 people.

This, it hurts.

[somber music playing]

[Meyers] We were upset
about the plea deal.

It's not justice for these families.

[Irvin] It wasn't nearly severe enough
for Boeing.

It's just checking the box
and… and moving on.

[dramatic music playing]

[Mohawk] The fine's nothing to Boeing.

If there's actually people
that are subject to jail time,

that'll stop their practices.

[Meyers] A lot of these
government agencies think, "Oh my gosh,

you know, if we lead
one of them out in handcuffs,

the whole company…
the house of cards is gonna collapse."

No, you lead them out in handcuffs,

that's gonna make people
start to think twice.

Until you hold people accountable,
they will not change.

[music fades]

[Naoise] I had this feeling
like I needed to do something.

[pensive music playing]

And there was a number of families

that were prepared to stand up and fight.

-[woman 1] Hi, hi.
-[woman 2] Hello.

[Naoise] The only way
we could go after the CEOs

was by proving
that Boeing violated the terms

during their probationary period,

that they had failed to improve
their safety standards.

And we had three years to do that.

[dramatic music playing]

[man] Our families,
we meet every month online.

We keep track of
what Boeing's safety failures have been.

There are always more.

[Naoise] There's a reporting procedure
in America.

Every time there's
a problem on an aircraft,

this goes into the system,
and the public can view it.

[Stumo] Yesterday there was a MAX
that declared an emergency in Rome

and another one
that declared an emergency in India.

We were looking for patterns,

and there was a huge amount
with brand-new aircraft.

Electrical problems,
the pressurization problem,

52 bad stabilizer trim motors.
These are critical safety systems.

[reporter 1] Boeing's had
production issues with an aft bulkhead.

[reporter 2] Electrical problem
with the instrument panel.

[reporter 3] One of the right
engine fan blades was fractured.

[man 1] All of a sudden,
we hear this loud explosion.

[reporter 4] A hole ripped open mid-flight
in the roof of a Southwest Airlines--

[man 2] The FAA has given us a bulletin
saying if you leave the engine anti-ice

when you're in clear air
for five minutes or more,

the engine could actually come undone.

[dramatic music continues]

I'm flying with a Post-it note
to remind me,

hey, turn that engine anti-ice off

'cause I have no other alert
on the airplane.

And we realized that this wasn't just
a software problem with the MAX aircraft.

There were
enormous manufacturing problems.

We needed to find out what was happening
in the Boeing factories.

[music fades]

[Seitz] John Barnett wanted nothing more

than to see a quality product
go out the door.

But it seemed like he was getting
pushback instead of support.

John raised up enough issues

and raised enough flags
from inside the company

that they eventually decided
to move him to somewhere

where he couldn't have that effect
on the production system.

Seeing what John went through,
it was upsetting.

[solemn music playing]

[Barnett] I had multiple managers
berating me.

On my performance management review,
I was downgraded

and my pay was docked
for putting quality concerns in writing.

They said flat out they do not want
anything in documentation

so they can maintain culpable deniability.

That's exact words.

Followed that up with what's called
a corrective action plan.

And basically, you're about to get fired.

[solemn music continues]

The stress and the humiliation
and the hostility towards me,

it just… it wore me down.

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 that?

[solemn music continues]

So I ended up taking a retirement.

[music fades]

[birds chirping]

But after I left,
I knew issues continued to exist.

That weighs heavy on my heart.

Maybe I should have went to the president
of Boeing instead of just the VP.

I mean, you know, you can't help
but think about those things.

You know,
what could I have done different?

And I'm sitting there, I'm thinking,
"What do I do now?"

And it was a choice
of either "sit down, shut up"

or go outside of Boeing.

[contemplative music playing]

We're talking airplanes,
we're talking people's lives,

we're talking the flying public.

I can't sit back and let that go.

[music continues]

And I wasn't gonna sit down, shut up.

[reporter] John Barnett says
he spent 32 years with Boeing,

and he's blowing the whistle
on where he works.

It's just all been about schedule
and hurry up and just get it done,

push the planes out,
we're behind schedule.

I know what's under the skin,
and it's scary.

I just think it's critically important

that the activities going on within Boeing

are made aware to the people
whose lives could be affected.

You know, I mean, look at the 737 MAX.

[sighs] Those lives and those families.

That's why I keep telling my story.

Somebody's got to step in
and get it addressed.

[Naoise] As we continued to research,

we became aware that
there was a small group of workers

that had come forward to say
that there were manufacturing problems

at the Boeing factory,

that there was total chaos.

And some of them
have reached out to us personally.

We've had the honor of working
with many of you for several years now.

And there's been a lot of…

[Naoise] We started to be in contact a lot
with whistleblowers.

We had kind of formed a group
at this stage.

[indistinct chatter]

There was a number of meetings with them,
some in person, then some online.

We couldn't just sit back and do nothing.

Because as families, we need to feel
that our loved ones mattered.

But also because real justice
and accountability

can prevent something from happening
in the future.

[anticipatory music playing]

[woman] How long do you think
we're gonna be there again?

-In the meeting?
-Yeah.

Oh, another three, four hours.

[Naoise] And then we started having
these meetings with the FAA.

[Stumo] The FAA is
the Federal Aviation Administration.

Their job is to make sure

there's the safe design
and manufacture of aircraft.

It has a large part of its duty
to monitor and inspect Boeing.

[Naoise] This deferred
prosecution agreement was going to expire

in about two years.

So every week we informed the FAA that
there was still an awful lot of problems.

[Stumo] We're seeing continuing problems
with brand-new aircraft

that you're not seeing
with older aircraft.

It's just lunacy that it's not fixed.

[Naoise] And what they said
at the time was,

"You don't need to worry about it."

"Boeing have changed their ways,
and they're a fantastic company now."

[music fades]

We're gonna share all issues
so that when things do go a little wrong,

we can get ahead of them with
all of our employees and with the public.

[mellow music playing]

Many people had hopes that
Calhoun would turn the company around.

CEO of Boeing, he mentioned the guidance…

[Mohawk] We need somebody
to make a change.

Hopefully, he's the person that will make
the change within our company.

[Meyers] Dave Calhoun committed
to cleaning up processes.

[man] It reorganized
its engineering organization.

It created a chief safety officer.

All these different tactical positions

that allowed them to… to make sure
that this doesn't happen again.

[Mohawk] They started to create
some kind of system

where leadership listened
to what was going on on the floor.

[woman] Welcome
to the Boeing Company's conference call.

[Calhoun] We will encourage
and reward employees for speaking up

to slow things down
if that's what's needed.

The Speak Up program
was going to make it easy for employees

to identify ethical problems,
bad behaviors,

and safety concerns to get quicker action.

Transparency is what we lost for a moment,

and it's something we have to regain

because it speaks to the trust
that the world has in us.

[signal beeping]

Breaking news.
Boeing's 737 MAX is allowed to fly again.

The FAA just lifted the grounding
this morning.

[reporter 1] The company has worked
to update the software, computers,

and pilot training for the MAX.

[man] You are flying on a Boeing 737 MAX.

[reporter 2] In this
American Airlines cabin,

applause for a new chapter
in 737 MAX safety

as the first domestic departure
roared off the runway.

[Calhoun] I'm very proud of our team,
and I'm very proud of that airplane.

It is a, uh, remarkable, uh, machine,

and… and as safe as anything…
anything in the air.

[engine roaring]

[Gates] After the planes were ungrounded,
I was convinced that the MAX was safe.

It was safe to fly.

[reporter 1] Big boost for Boeing
and its 737 MAX.

[reporter 2] A multi-billion dollar order
for Southwest Airlines.

[reporter 3] Ryanair ordered 75 MAXs.

[reporter 4] Looking to increase
production of the 737 MAX.

[reporter 5] The rent and flight line
tonight is very busy.

[reporter 3] Ryanair's CEO says the MAX

is now the safest plane
in aviation history.

Once the MAX was back in the air,
the whole atmosphere changed.

[mysterious music playing]

[Mohawk] Boeing went back
to business as usual.

It's time to make money again.

Let's push these airplanes out
and make that money.

Work exploded.

I was now responsible for, like,
ten times the amount of airplanes

I'm usually responsible for.

[Meyers] It was a schedule-driven,
chaotic rush again.

We were having a lot of problems.

We had counted about 50,000 parts
that bypassed quality

that had escaped to the airplane.

A lot of flight-critical parts too.

So I reported this
through the Speak Up program.

There are so many
of my nonconformance records still open.

And that's usually because
the part has gone missing.

Head of our material review board
came up with the decision

to go ahead and delete
those nonconformance records.

That was a criminal activity.

So the first thing I did was
I went through the Speak Up system.

[mouse clicks]

We're seeing a lot of defects
in these joint areas

where the parts are coming together.

I brought that up in a Speak Up.

But I don't think a whistleblower
calls Speak Up more than once.

Because when we did,
we were immediately retaliated against.

[train rattling]

My boss came to my desk
and chewed me out, and he said,

"I would have killed
someone who said what you said."

[tense music playing]

What did I say?

I said, we need to consider
engineering fundamentals.

[Mohawk] They were trying to work me
through a corrective action,

saying that I wasn't listening
to leadership doing my job.

[Meyers] The ethics advisor called me

and said, "Merle, yeah,
you're going to be singled out

and made an example of."

My senior manager said,
"Here's 12 things that you're doing wrong,

and you have to correct these
in 30 days, or I'll fire you."

"I started keeping documentation
about safety concerns."

I was thinking,
"I don't want to call the press."

Because we've seen with whistleblowing,

you lose your job,
you lose your community.

[Mohawk] I was whistleblowing internally
for a couple years,

but I never wanted to go public.

Because I'm just, at the end of the day,
an employee.

I would have been crucified.

[Salehpour] A lot of my coworkers
were really scared to come forward,

even within the company.

But when I see a problematic area
that could cause loss of life,

I'm gonna speak up until my face is blue.

So I kept on following it.

And they finally just kicked me
out of the Dreamliner program.

Then my tire was slashed.

I didn't know who did it,
but I think that was a warning call.

Things are a little more serious
than what you want to be.

It threw me off.

I was waking up with, uh, nightmares
three o'clock every morning.

And I was talking to three different
psychologists at the time,

to just be able to cope with it.

[somber music playing]

[Irvin] There's a lot of lives at stake.

I would have nightmares of airplanes
crashing very close to me.

I've had airplanes crash so close to me,
I can feel the heat from them in my sleep.

[Mohawk] That keeps me up at night.

I hope there's
not another MAX airplane loss,

but it does keep me up at night.

Just losing battle after battle,
and betrayed over and over again.

It just is gonna weigh you down.

I felt helpless.

[Seitz] The workers
would be more than happy

to speak out to the public,

but they're in fear of losing their jobs.

They have years to work.

They can't afford to be fired
from their positions.

There's definitely a culture of fear.

[crickets chirping]

[boat engine rumbling]

After John left Boeing,
he kept seeing all these problems,

and it really weighed on him.

So we filed the case.

John Barnett's case against Boeing
involved exposure

to a hostile work environment,

with allegations of retaliation
by Boeing against him.

He had been gaslighted

for years and years and years and years
when he was there.

Mr. Barnett, you testified that,
what did he say,

something about he was gonna break you?

-He was gonna push me until I broke.
-[Boeing lawyer] Okay.

Was… Was he joking when he said that?

Oh, absolutely not.

[Turkewitz] We filed a complaint,

and we had to compel Boeing
to produce documents.

It took forever
to get responses from Boeing.

Whistleblower cases
are very complicated cases.

Oftentimes, when whistleblowers
go public, when they're terminated,

the employer takes possession
of their laptops or their phones.

That means they have no evidence
to back up.

It's just he said, she said.

[pensive music playing]

[Turkewitz] What really set
John's situation apart from others

is that John had actually
documented everything.

And he said that someday in the future,

there was gonna be
a reckoning with Boeing,

and he was gonna have the proof
to demonstrate where they failed.

[Boeing lawyer] Let's talk about
the oxygen investigation.

Around July 2016, there was an issue
with defective oxygen canisters.

-Is that correct?
-Right.

[Boeing lawyer] You discovered
that some of the oxygen squibs

were not properly dispensing oxygen.

[Barnett] We had about 15%
that didn't initiate.

[Boeing lawyer] You had just performed
kind of informal tests

and had come up
with this 15% failure rate, correct?

No, it really wasn't an informal test.

-I said, "We need to take a closer look."
-[Boeing lawyer] Mm-hmm.

[Barnett] So I actually pulled
fresh squibs out of stores,

still in the packages,

and we sent that control group.

The failure rate actually went up to 25%.

That set off all kinds of alarms,

and I was like, "Okay,
this is a serious issue."

Say you're flying at 40,000 feet,
and for some reason,

you have a massive decompression,
and the oxygen masks drop.

[alert dinging]

You have 20 seconds to get your mask on

before it starts getting into
lack of oxygen,

and it'll actually create brain damage
and, in some cases, even death.

[clock beeping]

Imagine you're not getting oxygen.

Say you're sitting there with your kids.

Who gets the oxygen? Who don't?

-[pensive music playing]
-[zapping]

[Boeing lawyer] During the course
of you documenting

the issue with the oxygen squibs,

no one criticized you
for documenting that issue, correct?

Actually, we do have an email.

Pretty nasty.

He's like, just stop the madness.

That's the kind of attitude he had.

[Boeing lawyer] Mm-hmm. We didn't see that
in any of the emails we just looked at.

-Not these, but you have my copies, yes.
-[Boeing lawyer] Okay. Okay.

[Turkewitz] John used to say
that it takes 8, 10, 12 years

for those defects to manifest.

So he was really concerned
about these problems,

that they would manifest
down the road and cause a disaster.

[Naoise] The three-year probation
from the Department of Justice

was going to expire in a month.

That was kind of a mental process,

a psychological process
we were all going through.

[somber music playing]

The meetings had gone on
for months and months.

I even flew to Washington to sit down
with the Department of Justice

to explain our concerns
that nothing had changed

in the Boeing culture
and in the Boeing factories.

We sat down with
the head of the fraud section, Glenn Leon.

Then he started to read from a script.

And if we said, "Hang on a sec,
what about what we have to say?"

he might huff and puff a bit.

And then he carried on
as though we hadn't said anything.

It very much seemed
like the Department of Justice

was trying to protect Boeing.

[contemplative music playing]

[cameras clicking]

We go to these courtrooms,
and the DOJ and the Boeing lawyers

are on one side of the courtroom
talking to each other,

and we're on the other side.

It's like we're the criminals.

[Naoise] When you see
the number of lawyers that have passed

from Boeing into the Department of Justice

and from the Department of Justice
into the Boeing law firm,

it is complete political entanglement.

Now the deferred prosecution agreement
was about to expire.

There was no hope. There was no justice.

There was never
going to be accountability.

Forget it. Go home.

[man 1] It doesn't seem that the DOJ is
interested in getting the criminals out.

They're interested in getting this case
behind them any way they can.

And they're gonna allow the criminals
to stay in and do what.

And a lesson will never be learned
by anybody.

[man 2] Right now, we are showing

that there are countless issues
with production quality matters.

When is the next crash gonna be?

I hope it doesn't happen.

But this is what we're dealing with.

[pensive music playing]

[pilot over radio] Ground, Alaska 1282,
push up Charlie 7 North Yankee.

[air traffic controller]
Pushback's approved, 2-8 Left.

[passenger 1] It was a typical start-up,
taxi, takeoff.

[air traffic controller] Alaska 1282.
Runway 2-8 Left. Cleared to take off.

[pilot] Good day, Alaska 1282.

[passenger 2] My daughter pulled out
all sorts of sketching materials

as the flight took off.

[passenger 1] My son
was sitting on my lap.

My 3-year-old was in the middle.

And then my 5-year-old
was in the window seat.

[passenger 2] We're climbing.

I remember looking over

and just kind of wanting to see
how my family was doing.

[pilot] Seattle, Alaska 1282,
11,000 climbing 15,000.

[air traffic controller] Alaska 1282,
Seattle Center,

climb and maintain level of 2-3-0.

[high-pitched whistling]

[passenger 2] There was a high-pitched
whistling sound and then a boom.

[loud bang]

[alarms blaring]

[pilot] 1282, we are declaring
an emergency.

We are descending down to 10,000--

[continues indistinctly]

[engine roaring]

[passenger 1] Almost instantly,
oxygen masks dropped,

and I realized
there was something really wrong.

[pilot] We're about to go down.

[passenger 2] I immediately am disoriented
but quickly turn my head, and I see…

[whooshing]

…open sky.

I was just absolutely in shock.

[passenger 1] I stuck my 1-year-old's legs
in between my legs,

and I pinned him down.

He was screaming the whole time.

[wind whooshing]

[passenger 3] When I got the mask on,
there was no airflow.

Tried to breathe again.
There was no oxygen.

[tense music playing]

[passenger 2] And I was looking over
at my daughter,

seeing her hair being pulled back.

She was two rows in front of that opening.

We thought that the next panel
was going to fail

and that we were not gonna make it out
of that flight alive.

[passenger 1] The oxygen had depleted.

We started getting
that dizzy feeling again,

and my vision started clouding.

Both my daughters
were looking at me just afraid.

I hadn't told them it was going to be okay
because I didn't know.

[passenger 2] I was assuming
that I had minutes with my family.

So I'm reaching over,
and I put my hand on my wife's back.

And I just begin to pray.

[passenger 3] I send a text to my son
to say goodbye.

Let him know he's been the best thing
that's ever happened to me.

[tense music continues]

[passenger 1] I looked out the window,
and the plane dipped under the clouds.

And we could breathe again.

I was able to look at my kids and say,
"It's gonna be okay."

[airplane landing]

[announcer] We begin with breaking news.

[newscaster] That breaking news
is out of Oregon.

And take a look at this.

Video from inside an airliner
still in the air

after a large section of its fuselage
blew out during the flight.

[pensive music playing]

[Gates] When the Alaska incident occurred,

I was just gathering information
like everyone else.

I didn't know what had happened.

[Ostrower] I was in my kitchen
and my phone blew up.

I knew something was very, very wrong.

[newscaster] National Transportation
Safety Board are investigating this.

At cruise altitude,
we could have lost the aircraft.

[reporter] The plane is a Boeing 737 MAX
that had just been certified.

[Gates] What blew off
was what's called a door plug.

It's not an actual door,

but there is an opening there that
some airlines put an extra door in.

[Ostrower] I called
a close contact at Boeing and told them,

"This is the kind of stuff
that grounds airplanes."

[reporter 1] The FAA grounded
all 737 MAX 9s in the U.S.

[reporter 2] Saying what happened
is likely to exist

or develop in other planes.

[reporter 3] Boeing denied liability,
saying its products were,

quote, "improperly maintained, or misused

by persons and/or entities
other than Boeing."

Our job is to understand
literally everything that has happened.

[woman] Boeing has not provided us
with the documents

and information that we have requested
numerous times over the past few months.

They talk about transparency,

but certainly, at least so far,

they're not being transparent about
exactly what happened with that plug.

[Mohawk] I was not surprised
by the door plug incident.

I've been fighting for a couple years,

knowing that something like that
was gonna happen.

[mellow music playing]

I was just relieved that nobody died.

It was a nightmare
just having that kind of failure.

I said to myself, "This is what happens
if you don't hold people accountable."

When the door blowout happened
and I saw that on the news,

I predicted exactly what they were
gonna find during their investigation.

[music building]

[Gates] This panel blowing off
the plane incident

was traced back to a quality lapse
inside the factory.

[Ostrower] In 2023,
an airplane is coming down the line

at Boeing's 737 plant near Seattle.

And it's the airplane
that became Alaska 1282.

There's chaos elsewhere in the factory

as Boeing is trying to keep up
with its own increased production

and dealing with outsourcing.

[Gates] The investigation discovered

that the door team at Boeing
had taken off the door plug

in order to fix things
that suppliers didn't get right.

To do so, they would have had to remove
four retaining bolts.

[cranking]

And there was one photo
in their preliminary report

that was very telling.

You could actually see three
of the four corners of the door plug.

And the retaining bolts that were needed
to secure it in place weren't there.

[tense music playing]

They were never put back.

Afterwards, that plane flew 154 flights.

And each time it landed or took off,

the vibrations shifted the door plug
a little tiny bit

until, eventually,
on January 5th of 2024, it blew out.

[loud bang]

[man] To date, we have still found
no paperwork documenting

the removal of 8789's left-hand MED plug.

[Lund] That is correct.

Whoever did the work never recorded it.

Why not?

Probably because
somebody wanted it done quickly.

There was a whole system here
that was inadequate.

This was a close call, too close.

[reporter] On Capitol Hill today,
the FAA chief said

Boeing quality control had clearly failed.

If you don't have that safety culture,
it's hard to make safe airplanes.

[contemplative music playing]

[Naoise] Everything that
we had been saying,

that Boeing's culture was broken

and that these defective planes
are continuing to fly,

had just been proved correct.

That happened two days before

this deferred prosecution agreement
was about to expire.

In a way, it's a miracle

because not only was no one killed,

now how could they say Boeing have been
good during their probationary period?

They couldn't.

[newscaster] The Justice Department
announced Boeing violated a 2021 agreement

that protected the company
from any charges.

[reporter] Boeing has responded.

"We believe that we have honored
the terms of that agreement."

The question now, though,

what does a potential punishment
even look like for Boeing?

Nobody seems to know just yet.

It opened up everything again.

[pensive music playing]

The investigation by the DOJ
and criminal prosecution.

Everything was back on the table.

[Boeing lawyer] In the days leading up
to you leaving Boeing,

did you talk to anyone about the stress
that you were experiencing at work?

[Barnett] I talked to my doctors.

[Boeing lawyer] What did your doctor say?

She said I was gonna have
a heart attack and die,

or I could have a heart attack and die
in that environment, yes.

[Boeing lawyer] She said,
during this appointment,

you could have a heart attack and die
if you don't leave work.

That's your testimony?

If I don't get out
of that environment, yes.

[pensive music playing]

[birds chirping]

Can we take a few minutes?

[Turkewitz] Boeing's counsel took
his deposition for a full seven hours.

John was really tired.

He said that he would like to go back home
and resume his deposition at a later date.

Boeing objected to John's request.

By this stage,

John didn't want to do anything that
was going to cause a delay in the trial,

and that he will just come back
the next morning and we'd finish it up.

And he went back to his hotel.

[thunder rumbling]

The morning of Saturday, March 9th,

it was storming outside.

A lot of thunder, lightning,
and really heavy rain.

By ten o'clock,
we hadn't heard anything from John.

So when the rain slowed down,
we all drove there.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Knowles] Our hopes
as we drove to the hotel

was that we were gonna just find John
having a medical situation

but that he was gonna be okay.

I was thinking he maybe had
a really severe panic attack

or something like that.

But when we went inside the hotel,

the manager took us in the back,

and the first thing she said to us was,
"I'm sorry for your loss."

It was really surprising and overwhelming
and just a lot of emotion

when we're learning
that they had found John in his truck

with a gunshot wound to the head.

The police detective believed
it was most likely, uh, suicide.

[Turkewitz] We had a lot of questions,

and we wanted to make sure that the police
did a full, complete investigation.

[Knowles] We wanted to see
his cell phone content.

Any witnesses that they interviewed,
I'd like to see those witness statements.

And did they fingerprint
the outside of his truck?

A former employee
of the U.S. plane maker Boeing,

who turned whistleblower,
has been found dead.

[mysterious music playing]

[Stokes] I talked to him
on the Monday before.

I asked him, I said,
"When are you coming home?"

He said, "They put my meeting off,
and so I have to stay here."

"I'll be so glad to get home."

He said, "I just want to get in my bed."

And we still have
a lot of unanswered questions.

We just want to know what happened.

I was shocked.

Nobody wants to accept the fact
that John would do this

so close to completing
what he set out to accomplish,

bringing awareness to the fact
that Boeing was overlooking quality.

He was at the finish line.

Um…

Being found in his truck like that, um,

you know, it just…
it just didn't seem to us that

that was John… the John that we knew.

[beeping]

[Knowles] After that,
things got very weird.

I mean, it was like jumping
into an alternate universe.

[host] He was obviously under
an enormous amount of scrutiny,

but was it enough to take his own life?

That's what everyone wants to know.

We're trying to nail down the timeline
of John Barnett's death

and whether this was indeed a suicide.

People are raising their eyebrows.

[Knowles] People were saying
that John had been killed

to silence others from speaking out.

[woman] He said, "But if anything
happens to me, it's not suicide."

I know that he did not commit suicide.

There's no way.

[Watters] It just doesn't make sense.

Well, that's our feeling too.

And the Charleston City Police are
investigating, and so is the coroner.

And we're just waiting for
the police department and the coroner

to release a report
on what they believe happened.

[tense music playing]

[Knowles] The atmosphere was just tense.

And even I started thinking,

you know, I'm not clear
on what's really happened here.

[music fades]

[Meyers] When I had heard about
John Barnett losing his life,

that was traumatic.

But what really got me angry

was finding out how he was treated
by management for years,

'cause I could identify with that.

[pensive music playing]

I was furious.

They had their chance to fix all this,
and they did nothing.

So I called The New York Times reporter.

I just said, use my name

and let people know
I gave you Boeing documentation.

Going public was completely
against my grain for the most part.

I… I'm not, you know,
one that's drawn to a camera.

Roy Irvin is speaking publicly,
on camera, for the first time.

John Barnett was a lighthouse.

When I first started at the company,

he was pointing people
in the right direction.

He's continuing to do that now.

[Emerson] Roy is on a mission
to finish what Barnett started.

I'm not John,
but somebody needs to keep pushing.

[Seitz] My family has concerns
about me taking part in this movie,

but I'm doing it for John.

[Salehpour exhales sharply]
I was really scared.

But I promised myself
I will be speaking up,

regardless of the consequences.

I'm here today because
I felt that I must come forward.

I have serious concerns about the safety
of the 787 and 777 aircraft.

And I'm willing to take on
professional risk to talk about them.

[reporter] We've now learned
there is a new whistleblower

named Sam Mohawk.

[Mohawk] I put a big target
on my back in there.

So why'd you do it?

Because I'm concerned with safety.

Like, at the end of the day,

my friends and family
fly on these airplanes.

[Knowles] Since John's passing,

we've been contacted by dozens and dozens
and dozens of aviation whistleblowers.

They all have the same common concerns
that John Barnett had.

[reporter] The New York Times interviewed
current and former Boeing employees

who say the workforce has,
quote, "dropped."

The inspection process has,
quote, "weakened."

And production speed is being prioritized
over quality control.

John inspired a lot of people
to come forward.

[music fades]

We're headed
to the Charleston County Coroner's Office

to meet with the coroner

who reached a conclusion
related to John Barnett's passing.

They're gonna be disclosing
the results of their investigation,

including forensic results
and the autopsy results.

[Knowles] Yeah,
there's a lot of questions.

[Turkewitz] This is gonna be
a very tough day for John's family.

Can y'all hear me okay?

Yes, thank you.

-Good morning, Rodney. Can you hear me?
-Good morning. Yes, ma'am.

So we were notified, um, of a… a death
in a vehicle at the hotel.

The vehicle, it was locked,
and they had to open it up.

We then, uh, photographed everything
as we found it.

[somber music playing]

The Charleston Police Department came up
with about 80 fingerprints

that belonged to John.

There was nothing to let us think
that there had been a struggle

or anything of that nature.

We did obtain
the hotel surveillance cameras

where we can see John
coming into the lobby.

And then he exits the hotel at 8:37.

His truck is seen backing
into a parking spot at 8:45.

No one is seen entering the vehicle,
exiting the vehicle

until first responders find him.

One of the questions
that has been lingering is,

were you able to determine
that the bullet matched the gun?

Yes. What was found in the headliner
is what matches to his weapon.

I think it's consistent
that it's John's weapon,

he's inside his vehicle,

and the manner of death is suicide.

[somber music playing]

[Stokes] Heart-wrenching…

to know what, uh, my son had gone through,

and I saw some of it,

but I guess I just didn't realize
how much it bothered him.

[O'Neal] Call me if you need me.

Thank you.

[O'Neal] You're welcome.

-Bye-bye.
-[Rodney] Bye.

[Stokes sighs]

Give me a hug after that. [sobs]

[Knowles] These are the items

that the Charleston City Police Department
released back to us.

John's, uh, laptop.

This was his cell phone.

And John's notebook.

[intriguing music playing]

And written inside there

is the suicide note that John left
before he took his life.

"Fuck Boeing."

"I can't do this any longer. Enough."

"I pray the motherfuckers
that destroyed my life pay."

"I pray Boeing pays."

"Bury me face down so Boeing and
their lying-ass leaders can kiss my ass."

"To my family and friends,
I found my purpose. I'm at peace."

"I love you more."

And then he signed,
John Mitch, aka Swampy.

[Turkewitz] And it's one of those things
where you just keep asking yourself,

"What could have I done differently?"

Yeah.

But one thing is for sure, and that is,

you know, Boeing
may not have pulled the trigger,

but Boeing was responsible
for John's death.

[reporter] Today, a congressional hearing
is putting the safety and quality

of Boeing's commercial jets
in the spotlight.

[pensive music playing]

After the 737 MAX crashes,
Boeing promised to turn things around.

And whistleblowers
came forward reporting to us

that, in fact,
there was simply more of the same.

Improper fastening,

use of defective and damaged parts,

lapses in manufacturing quality.

There is certainly mounting evidence
that a prosecution is justified.

And we felt more and more
that we had to demand accountability.

And that's the reason why Dave Calhoun,
the CEO, will be a witness today.

[pensive music continues]

[music fades]

[woman] This is my daughter,
Danielle Moore.

Danielle was just 24 years old

when she died on Boeing 737 MAX.

So, my name is Zipporah Kuria,

and I lost my dad, Joseph Kuria Waithaka.

As the agencies involved
in making decisions that matter,

if you fail to prosecute,

if you fail to teach history a real lesson
of justice, and it repeats itself,

how will you live with yourselves?

-[indistinct chatter]
-[cameras clicking]

[somber music playing]

[parent of deceased] You destroyed
our son's life,

and you killed our children.

We will never have
a chance to see and hug them

just the way you do with your family.

Give us the answer.

[woman] Stop putting profit over people.

[parent of deceased]
Think of the six minutes

of my daughter's last breath on the plane.

Six minutes that she called for me.

Five years ago, 346 innocent people

lost their lives
in two preventable tragedies.

In the wake of those tragedies,
Boeing promised to turn itself around.

And for a while, some sort of believed
that Boeing might have changed.

But then this past January,

the facade
literally blew off the hollow shell

that had been Boeing's promises
to the world.

The issues before us today
are a matter of life and death.

And this hearing is a moment of reckoning.

I would like to welcome in particular
some of the members of the audience

who are here today.

The family of John Barnett,

his mother, Vicky Stokes,
and brother, Rodney Barnett,

a Boeing whistleblower
who committed suicide

under the immense pressure
that the company put on him

for raising safety claims.

David Calhoun has served as President
and Chief Executive Officer of Boeing

since January 2020,

and he began his career
at General Electric Company, GE,

where he spent 26 years.

Mr. Calhoun, it seems like every other day

news breaks of a new problem
or safety concern with Boeing aircraft.

So what are the root causes
of this systemic failure?

How are you gonna fix it?
And who should we hold accountable?

Does the buck stop with you
or with somebody else?

The contributing causes to most everything
outside of the Alaska accident

relate to a variety of inputs
that are downstream

with respect to operating and maintenance
and et cetera with an airplane.

Um…

Alaska was a manufacturing defect.

I'm not aware of any others that were. Um…

[Blumenthal] The suppliers
of parts and components,

Boeing blames them.

The workers whose jobs are at stake,
Boeing blames them.

The pilots who fly these planes,
Boeing blames them.

Boeing blames everyone except itself.

This… So much of this relates
to an untrained workforce.

I… I… It's all about that, honestly.

Uh, Mr. Calhoun, what is it that…
that you get paid currently?

Senator, that's well disclosed
in our proxy documents,

uh, in… in each of the years
that I've been employed.

Yeah, but what is it?

-It's a big number, sir.
-[Hawley] Well, let me help you out.

It's $32.8 million this year.
Does that sound right?

Yes, it does.

That's a 45% increase over last year.
Does that sound right?

[smacks lips] Yes, it does.

[Hawley] What is it
you get paid to do exactly?

I get paid to run the Boeing Company.

Yeah. Is quality part
of your compensation package?

Because we've had multiple whistleblowers
come before this committee and allege

that Boeing is cutting every possible
corner on quality and safety,

not just in the past but now.

They've alleged that you've eliminated
safety inspections,

that there are fewer inspectors
doing quality inspections out there.

They've alleged that
when they raised issues and concerns,

they were reassigned,
they were retaliated against,

they were physically threatened.

That doesn't sound like
attention to quality to me.

And yet you're getting paid
$33 million a year.

[pensive music playing]

[Gelles] Boeing is
in worse shape than ever,

and what's really hard to accept

is that the executives
who made all those decisions

are worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

Boeing is in shambles,

and the very small group of men
who got the company there

are some of the richest people
in the world.

[Gates] There have been many executives
who have come into Boeing,

come into companies across America,

who see their jobs as cost-cutting,

squeezing money out of the company
to increase profits.

You're strip-mining it.
You're strip-mining Boeing.

It was one of the greatest
American companies ever.

It has employed
thousands of people in my state,

and you are strip-mining it for profit,
shareholder value,

and you're being rewarded for it.

You got a huge raise, a huge increase.

So, it's working out great for you,
not for the American people.

Many of these executives
have no connection

to the product they're making.

They were hired because
they had some kind of business degree.

It's a characteristic
that successful companies have

and unsuccessful companies don't have.

This year, we're at 47 a month.

We're gonna be taking it up to 52 a month.

That forecast is getting
more and more robust every day,

and if we can get some help
from the Congress,

we will ultimately realize those gains.

[air traffic controller]
Frontier Flight 2688,

Portland Tower, runway 2-8 Left,
cleared for takeoff.

[pilot] 2-8 Left, cleared for takeoff.

[Meyers] Boeing likes
to attack the symptoms.

Some part flies off an airplane,
or an engine catches fire,

they want to go after a quick fix,
and then they can say they did something.

Boeing never attacks the disease,
which is their leadership model.

Pursuit of money at all costs

rather than making
the greatest airplane in the world.

[Gelles] In most companies,
the stakes aren't people's lives.

But at Boeing, they are.

When the quality of Boeing suffers,
people die.

[Gates] We all need safe air travel.

We need safe airplanes.

Boeing needs to be held accountable.

[pensive music playing]

[Naoise] They really just wanted
to get rid of us.

But I don't think I can walk away
and just say, "There's nothing we can do,"

and put my hands in the air.

There's been no justice,
no accountability.

It makes me so angry.

And I think that we have to keep fighting.

It can't be allowed to just stay this way.

Something has to change.

[solemn music playing]

[music fades]