From Dreamliner to nightmare: The warnings Boeing may have missed as Air India crash rekindles old fears

Time of India

14-06-2025

Before every flight, cabin crew ask passengers to pay attention to safety demonstrations, an assurance that procedures are in place and risks are minimized.
But a 2022 Netflix documentary on the inner workings of
Boeing
claimed that despite employees having raised alarms for years, many of those warnings were not always met with appropriate internal actions.
After the
Air India
Boeing 787-8 crash in Ahmedabad on June 12, 2025, the Netflix documentary,
Downfall: The Case Against Boeing
, has once again become an important reminder on the questions that have been raised on Boeing's safety culture over the years.
by Taboola
by Taboola
Sponsored Links
Sponsored Links
Promoted Links
Promoted Links
You May Like
Wärmepumpe lohnt sicht nur – wenn Ihr Haus diese Kriterien erfüllt!
heizexperte
Mehr erfahren
Undo
While investigators are still working to determine the cause of the crash, the tragedy has placed renewed attention on Boeing's internal practices and oversight history. The company's record with the 787 had been largely free of major incidents until now. Over 1,100 Dreamliners are currently flying, part of a wider fleet of over 2,500 units sold globally.
Also Read:
India's aviation boom is flying on fumes
Live Events
Yet for close observers of the company, this accident cannot be viewed in isolation. Since 2018, Boeing has faced public scrutiny over safety gaps exposed by whistleblowers, regulatory probes, and two earlier 737 Max crashes. These developments, highlighted in testimony and documentary investigations, suggest that pressures to meet production goals may have come at the cost of engineering safeguards.
Though no direct connection has yet been made between those earlier lapses and the recent
Air India crash
, Boeing's broader safety culture remains under the spotlight.
Internal warnings ignored
As shown in the Netflix documentary
Downfall: The Case Against Boeing
, engineers and managers at Boeing had flagged safety issues long before recent crashes. These concerns intensified after two deadly 737 Max crashes between 2018 and 2019, which killed 346 people. The documentary and the investigation documents cited revealed how the company had hidden critical design flaws to avoid costly pilot retraining.
Internal memos showed Boeing downplayed problems with its MCAS system, the software that contributed to both crashes. 'If we emphasize MCAS as a new function, there may be greater certification and training impact,' one internal note said. Another read, 'Externally, we would communicate it is an addition to Speed Trim. Internally continue using the acronym MCAS.'
As Peter DeFazio, A senior U.S. House Democrat who oversaw a massive investigation into the Boeing 737 MAX, put it bluntly: 'Everybody at Boeing knew you can't have pilot retraining. No matter what we do, no matter how we change this plane, we've gotta pretend it's the same plane as the predecessor.'
According to the documentary, one internal test found that if pilots took longer than 10 seconds to respond to MCAS failure, the outcome could be catastrophic. Yet, the system relied on a single angle-of-attack sensor, considered a basic violation of aviation safety norms.
Also Read:
Air India Crash- Eight Boeing 787 jets inspected so far, full fleet surveillance underway, says Aviation Minister
'You never ever have a safety-critical system that has a single point of failure,' DeFazio noted.
Small incidents like bird strikes or even balloons could disable the sensor. Captain Dan Carey said, 'Believe it or not, we hit balloons, we hit birds, these things are not uncommon.'
The production line that couldn't stop
Even as design shortfalls were being exposed, Boeing's troubles kept piling on. Inside its factories, especially after the
McDonnell Douglas
merger, priorities shifted from safety to delivery deadlines.
As Edward Pierson, former senior manager at Boeing's 737 factory in Renton testified, 'I had grown gravely concerned that Boeing was prioritizing production speed over quality and safety.'
In 2018, as Boeing chased aggressive production targets, key safety metrics collapsed.
Pierson pointed to rising metrics like 'Jobs Behind Schedule' and drops in 'Roll Out on Time,' combined with excessive overtime, causing what he called a dangerous mix of fatigue and process breakdowns.
'Workmanship mistakes, missed inspection items, incomplete paperwork, or failure to follow established test procedures, all of which add considerable risk to the safety of airplanes,.' Pierson said.
Safety culture undermined
Boeing's culture once encouraged people to raise safety concerns. But that shifted after McDonnell Douglas took over. John Barnett, who worked as a quality manager, described in the documentary how things changed:
'If something's not right, you need to find it and get it fixed. But instead of fixing problems, everything was about speed. You can't stop. You can't slow down,' Barnett said. 'Every time I'd raise my hand, they would attack the messenger and ignore the message.'
Michael Goldfarb, a former Boeing safety expert, said the company's culture shifted after the merger. 'Historically, Boeing was a culture of telling bad news. Now it became a problem that you do not bring bad news to the boss.'
Marginalized inspectors and hidden risks
At Boeing's Charleston plant, which produces significant portions of the Dreamliner's fuselage, the pressure to move fast led to the marginalization of inspectors. The facility is responsible for assembling major sections of the 787, including the mid-body and aft-body fuselage structures, before final assembly.
Cynthia Kitchens, who worked there between 2009 and 2016, recalled, 'They have one quality person for almost a whole building on each shift. We used to have 15.'
The pressure to prioritize speed was captured in secret recordings from inside the Charleston plant. An undercover worker, as shown in the documentary, spoke to colleagues who openly admitted cutting corners:
Hidden camera recordings at the plant revealed how some workers skipped safety steps to save time. One mechanic said, 'They didn't put a shim on the landing gear yesterday. On the lugs. The night shift didn't.' The colleague's reaction: 'Oh, f***.' The reason: 'They said we don't have time to f***ing put it on.
Debris left inside planes
Shortcuts had dangerous consequences. Barnett described daily discoveries of foreign object debris inside completed aircraft, recalling, 'Every day, we were finding crap on airplanes that people were leaving. There were drawings, tools, and fasteners.'
For Barnett, One incident stood out: 'There was this one 787, and after a test flight, they found a ladder inside the horizontal stabilizer. All it would have taken was that ladder to fall up against the jackscrew assembly, and that plane would have been history.'
He added: 'These are pictures of metal shavings in wire bundles. These shavings can cause a fire or a short. These aircraft fly by wire, if you have a short, it could cause malfunctions in your instruments, your landing gear, everything that runs by wire would be affected.'
Whistleblowers faced retaliation when they tried to formally report concerns.
'My pay was docked for putting quality concerns in writing. They told us flat out they do not want anything in documentation so they can maintain culpable deniability,' Barnett said.
Concerns about Air India deliveries
Two people familiar with the Charleston 787 plant told
The American Prospect
that some of their deepest safety concerns involved planes delivered to Air India.
At the Charleston plant, Cynthia Kitchens kept meticulous records of her time inside Boeing, including one document listing 11 Dreamliners that troubled her most. Six of them were sold to Air India.
When she asked her manager if he'd let his children fly on those aircraft, he replied: 'Cindy, none of these planes are staying in America, they're all going overseas.'
As per one of investigators, who worked on the documentary, employees were particularly anxious about three Air India planes scheduled for delivery in early 2014. These aircraft required rework at Boeing's Everett union facility before delivery, as per
The Prospect
.
The
Air India Dreamliner
that crashed in Ahmedabad was delivered from Everett on January 31, 2014, its mid- and aft-fuselages built in Charleston.
Boeing's response to MAX's investigation
In response to longstanding safety concerns, the then Boeing CEO David Calhoun, during his testimony before the U.S. Senate on June 18, 2024, acknowledged the company's past failures and said, 'Much has been said about Boeing's culture. We've heard those concerns loud and clear. Our culture is far from perfect, but we are taking action and making progress.'
Calhoun added that Boeing has implemented safety stand-downs, brought in external experts, and asked every employee to act as an "aviation safety advocate" to strengthen oversight and quality across its operations.
However, with Kelly Ortberg now leading Boeing, the crash involving the Air India Dreamliner presents a critical test for the company's stated reforms and its commitment to safety over speed.