Whether or not it was suicide, you hit it on the mark saying Boeing is responsible. Companies need to be held accountable but the bullshit that they do to people who call them out on it is ridiculous. I hope they get sued for that. You put your life on the line when you get onto a plane. They might be safer then cars yet when a car engines messes up, it doesn’t fall 30,000 feet out of the sky. There needs to be better safety measures at Boeing because this is going to get bad real quick.
This is scary and sad. The suicide seems very suspicious. This is why I wish the conspiracy theorists who expend so much energy on magical, nonsensical, and imagined conspiracies would direct their energy at the real conspiracies right in front of them. There are so many shady fucked up things that happen in the name of capitalism. As Naomi Klein says….Capitalism is the real conspiracy!
"...This is why I wish the conspiracy theorists who expend so much energy on magical, nonsensical, and imagined conspiracies would direct their energy at the real conspiracies right in front of them...” <--- THIS.
Enormous sums of money we're funnelled into the pharmaceutical industry to speed up the development of the COVID-19 vaccines.
Yet the pharmaceutical companies get to keep the patents and are looking at quadrupling their prices.
One of the big oil companies identified global warming was a thing back in the 1950s and then spent billions downplaying it.
There's so many problems and so much greed in the world but too many of these conspiracy theorists focus their attention on garbage about lizard people, Jews, communists, trans people etc
The Seattle Times and Dominic Gates have done excellent reporting on this. As an airline pilot I dip my toes in a well known pilot forum where there is an extensive thread running about Boeing.
One comment that sat with me was "It is almost unbelievable the damage Jack Welch did to American business."
As has been well documented the rot at Boeing started in 1997 with the merger with McDonnell Douglas. It was essentially a reverse takeover where MD management assumed control of Boeing. Managers that were acolytes of Jack Welch.
The last product that can be defined as a product of the old engineering focused Boeing is the 777-300ER, a capable and reliable aeroplane. Everything since is a product of the financialisation of Boeing and deeply problematic.
I wouldn't like to comment on John Barnett. Susicidenor murder, be paid the price for standing up against a mega corporation in a neo-liberal world.
However, keep on doing what you're doing, Boeing. If it puts people off flying, I'm all for it. It doesn't seem that anything else will get through.
I live in NZ. I have close friends and a beloved brother living in Britain and I will never see any of them against because, to be honest, I cannot bring myself to fly there, knowing how much I will be damaging the planet, by indulging my wish to be with them. It wasn't an easy decision, but once made it's easy to stick with.
I'm sorry if this seems self-righteous and judgemental, but like not owning/using a car (difficult in provincial NZ), or eating plant-based, or boycotting Amazon and Temu, these are choices we CAN make. If every Westerner made them, we would be a lot closer to mitigating the climate catastrophe.
I've made the same decision and do not intend to fly again. I also mostly avoid long distance travel by car, limiting it to essential family events. I am regularly dismayed by the carelessness with which people travel by air for entertainment, and by the still current attitude that there is some kind of social virtue in travelling (rather than staying at home being dull).
There's travelling and there's going on holiday, which is a usually what most people do. I suspect half the visitors to Bali wouldn't know how to find it on a map. The trouble is, that what people simply seem unable to understand is that just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you should! Good for you living by your principles. 👍
Agreed re profit over lives (capitalism) - but how do you get off the bus without having to literally make and grow everything you need to live? I am so conflicted living in a 'civilized' society!
I already hated flying, did it as little as possible, so this shit has really pushed me to just find as many alternatives as I can OR just stay the fuck home (also, yes, a privilege in its own way). To me, it's just another example of how the gesture of corporate greed and capitalism has and will continue to destroy lives. Late Stage Capitalism! Fun to live through 😵💫
Being thousands of metres in the air encapsulated by a metal box held together with screws and bolts when you can't trust the people who put it together, would be a little frightening. Statistically speaking, dying in a plane crash is still 1 in a million. The chances of dying by gun violence in America are 1 in 89 ish. You're probably safer in the air than on the ground.
The stats here in NZ are pretty grim, too. Gun violence isn't common here, but suicide is. I read some awful stat recently that said our suicide numbers were higher than deaths from car accidents and homicides combined.
I work for a Fortune 50 company that, by any and all means necessary, only cares about hyper-productivity. The problem is that we, their employees, are human beings — a fact that doesn't exactly lend itself to breakneck pace production timelines. However, we're expected to work at said pace anyhow, for fear of termination and the loss of our entire career/livelihoods, and it leads to... well, a significant amount of burnout, anxiety, and desperation among the workforce within this (ridiculously large) company. Thankfully, we only sell cable and Internet (as well as own many of the media ventures across the US and UK, but I digress) — not large human transport devices that, when not made well, become large, human death-traps. Sigh. I'm exhausted by late-stage capitalistic greed, but like you said — "what's one more life?" Right? /s
A couple of weeks ago, John Oliver did a great wrap up of the Boeing issues. I showed it to a friend who was a 30 year Boeing employee (now retired) and he agrees with all of it. Search John Oliver’s segment on YouTube, well worth a watch. He does keep circling back to the fact (yes, fact) that the Boeing CEO married his first cousin…
The Netflix documentary about Boeing - Downfall: The Case Against Boeing - is fantastic and goes through the timeline that ultimately led to these issues. At times feels like a metaphor for America as a whole.
I know I harp on about this a lot in these here comment sections, but CAPTIALISM, BABY.
Airlines are actually one of the first examples of how greedy corporate ghouls who cared about stock prices/profits/number go up. Frank Lorenzo “disrupted” the industry by making it worse for everyone. Behind the Bastards did an episode on him: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4htofdGSCdM3mCBrOdAhnR?si=RNSwBd6bQfmByb8fYs-zqg
This is all so stupid.
Also I just checked my flights to the states and they’re on Boeings. So I guess I might not see you again, David 👋
As nasty as these large airliner manufacturing corporations are, it is still orders-of-magnitude safer flying today than it was 15, 20, 30, 40+ years ago. Improved weather radars, standard operating procedures, weather forecasting, back up/redundancy systems, pilot interfaces, communication systems… all of these and more really give pilots such a better picture of what is going on now.
Also, if you are getting on any long haul flight these days, it’s either going to be a Boeing or an Airbus. Neither of them are perfect but with every (incredibly rare) accident or incident, the above systems and procedures are investigated thoroughly by regulators and improvements are enforced.
I have infinitely more risk getting into my car and driving to the airport once than getting on a 1000 flights.
You're really missing the point. McDonnell Douglas were allowed to take over Boeing in 1997 and set about demolishing the engineer led safety culture. That's why disaster designs like 737 MAX were allowed on the market. Worse yet, they captured the regulator after trashing their own quality inspectors and convinced FAA and others that they could self certify.
All to make a faster, bigger buck. And the two 737 MAX crashes were not random - they were inevitable. The recent Alaskan one could have brought the "hull loss" tally to three with approx 500 pax killed. This is systematic risk taking, not some random event occurring.
Boeing will cease to exist as we know it within a few years.
So what point am I meant to be getting? I was merely giving another point of view to the notion that we all should abandon flying in Boeing aircraft (or any airliner for that matter).
I know what happened to Boeing and how these accidents came about. All I’m trying to say that right now is the safest time in history to get into an airliner of either flavour and go somewhere.
I know it’s whataboutism, but Airbus has killed over 1500 people. (Probably no whistleblowers though). Many incidents go without being reported. Because of the door plug loss, anything involving Boeing is getting more coverage now. (Did you see John Oliver’s Boeing story recently?). But where do we draw the line? People use iPhones without thinking of the suicide nets installed at their factories to catch the child slaves who throw themselves out windows. Maybe they fixed that. Maybe not. I’m still happy to fly Boeing, because, statistically speaking, it’s exponentially safer than driving.
I very much hear you, but for me it's the *why* of those two major Boeing crashes, and internally how that place operates when it comes to manufacturing planes. It sits... badly with me. And this suicide just makes me skin crawl!
I feel terrible for John Barnett and his family. Suicide or not, Boeing is responsible for over a thousand deaths, including John’s. And the reason? Greed, pure and simple.
Whether or not it was suicide, you hit it on the mark saying Boeing is responsible. Companies need to be held accountable but the bullshit that they do to people who call them out on it is ridiculous. I hope they get sued for that. You put your life on the line when you get onto a plane. They might be safer then cars yet when a car engines messes up, it doesn’t fall 30,000 feet out of the sky. There needs to be better safety measures at Boeing because this is going to get bad real quick.
This is scary and sad. The suicide seems very suspicious. This is why I wish the conspiracy theorists who expend so much energy on magical, nonsensical, and imagined conspiracies would direct their energy at the real conspiracies right in front of them. There are so many shady fucked up things that happen in the name of capitalism. As Naomi Klein says….Capitalism is the real conspiracy!
"...This is why I wish the conspiracy theorists who expend so much energy on magical, nonsensical, and imagined conspiracies would direct their energy at the real conspiracies right in front of them...” <--- THIS.
Enormous sums of money we're funnelled into the pharmaceutical industry to speed up the development of the COVID-19 vaccines.
Yet the pharmaceutical companies get to keep the patents and are looking at quadrupling their prices.
One of the big oil companies identified global warming was a thing back in the 1950s and then spent billions downplaying it.
There's so many problems and so much greed in the world but too many of these conspiracy theorists focus their attention on garbage about lizard people, Jews, communists, trans people etc
The Seattle Times and Dominic Gates have done excellent reporting on this. As an airline pilot I dip my toes in a well known pilot forum where there is an extensive thread running about Boeing.
One comment that sat with me was "It is almost unbelievable the damage Jack Welch did to American business."
As has been well documented the rot at Boeing started in 1997 with the merger with McDonnell Douglas. It was essentially a reverse takeover where MD management assumed control of Boeing. Managers that were acolytes of Jack Welch.
The last product that can be defined as a product of the old engineering focused Boeing is the 777-300ER, a capable and reliable aeroplane. Everything since is a product of the financialisation of Boeing and deeply problematic.
I wouldn't like to comment on John Barnett. Susicidenor murder, be paid the price for standing up against a mega corporation in a neo-liberal world.
However, keep on doing what you're doing, Boeing. If it puts people off flying, I'm all for it. It doesn't seem that anything else will get through.
I live in NZ. I have close friends and a beloved brother living in Britain and I will never see any of them against because, to be honest, I cannot bring myself to fly there, knowing how much I will be damaging the planet, by indulging my wish to be with them. It wasn't an easy decision, but once made it's easy to stick with.
I'm sorry if this seems self-righteous and judgemental, but like not owning/using a car (difficult in provincial NZ), or eating plant-based, or boycotting Amazon and Temu, these are choices we CAN make. If every Westerner made them, we would be a lot closer to mitigating the climate catastrophe.
I've made the same decision and do not intend to fly again. I also mostly avoid long distance travel by car, limiting it to essential family events. I am regularly dismayed by the carelessness with which people travel by air for entertainment, and by the still current attitude that there is some kind of social virtue in travelling (rather than staying at home being dull).
There's travelling and there's going on holiday, which is a usually what most people do. I suspect half the visitors to Bali wouldn't know how to find it on a map. The trouble is, that what people simply seem unable to understand is that just because you CAN do something, doesn't mean you should! Good for you living by your principles. 👍
Ditto - boycotting Amazon and Temu.
If you can afford it, there's great local talent making and fixing things in Aotearoa.
Here in Christchurch, there's a great little shop in the Arts Centre called Francis Nation that sells NZ made kitchenware, garden tools and more.
When my jeans develop holes in the knees, I take them to someone locally who patches them up.
Ripped jeans are very in right now, I am leaving the holes in my unfashionable skinny jeans!
Ecotricity in Otautahi is great, too. I got a kickarse laptop from them not long ago for $300.
I am more than a little skeptical about the "suicide".
I think the world needs to take a step back from the need for profit at the expense of everything else.
Agreed re profit over lives (capitalism) - but how do you get off the bus without having to literally make and grow everything you need to live? I am so conflicted living in a 'civilized' society!
I already hated flying, did it as little as possible, so this shit has really pushed me to just find as many alternatives as I can OR just stay the fuck home (also, yes, a privilege in its own way). To me, it's just another example of how the gesture of corporate greed and capitalism has and will continue to destroy lives. Late Stage Capitalism! Fun to live through 😵💫
Being thousands of metres in the air encapsulated by a metal box held together with screws and bolts when you can't trust the people who put it together, would be a little frightening. Statistically speaking, dying in a plane crash is still 1 in a million. The chances of dying by gun violence in America are 1 in 89 ish. You're probably safer in the air than on the ground.
The stats here in NZ are pretty grim, too. Gun violence isn't common here, but suicide is. I read some awful stat recently that said our suicide numbers were higher than deaths from car accidents and homicides combined.
True. So grim. We have the second worst suicide rate in the developed world.
I work for a Fortune 50 company that, by any and all means necessary, only cares about hyper-productivity. The problem is that we, their employees, are human beings — a fact that doesn't exactly lend itself to breakneck pace production timelines. However, we're expected to work at said pace anyhow, for fear of termination and the loss of our entire career/livelihoods, and it leads to... well, a significant amount of burnout, anxiety, and desperation among the workforce within this (ridiculously large) company. Thankfully, we only sell cable and Internet (as well as own many of the media ventures across the US and UK, but I digress) — not large human transport devices that, when not made well, become large, human death-traps. Sigh. I'm exhausted by late-stage capitalistic greed, but like you said — "what's one more life?" Right? /s
A couple of weeks ago, John Oliver did a great wrap up of the Boeing issues. I showed it to a friend who was a 30 year Boeing employee (now retired) and he agrees with all of it. Search John Oliver’s segment on YouTube, well worth a watch. He does keep circling back to the fact (yes, fact) that the Boeing CEO married his first cousin…
The link for anyone interested: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8oCilY4szc&t=1s
Such a good episode! Similarly I heard on another podcast that executives were blaming DEI hires for their issues😒
Ohh thanks for the reminder that John Oliver is back on after the break. Looks like I have 4 episodes to catch up on now!
The Netflix documentary about Boeing - Downfall: The Case Against Boeing - is fantastic and goes through the timeline that ultimately led to these issues. At times feels like a metaphor for America as a whole.
Matt Stoller has some interesting research on why a company that used to be engineer led, and safety focused, lost its way. And what to do about it.
https://www.thebignewsletter.com/p/the-nationalization-of-boeing-begins
Yes, he has some very good insights
You should try changing a toddler in one of those toilets…
I know I harp on about this a lot in these here comment sections, but CAPTIALISM, BABY.
Airlines are actually one of the first examples of how greedy corporate ghouls who cared about stock prices/profits/number go up. Frank Lorenzo “disrupted” the industry by making it worse for everyone. Behind the Bastards did an episode on him: https://open.spotify.com/episode/4htofdGSCdM3mCBrOdAhnR?si=RNSwBd6bQfmByb8fYs-zqg
This is all so stupid.
Also I just checked my flights to the states and they’re on Boeings. So I guess I might not see you again, David 👋
Also this guy: https://www.forbes.com/sites/kylewestaway/2022/05/31/jack-welch-the-man-who-broke-capitalism/
As nasty as these large airliner manufacturing corporations are, it is still orders-of-magnitude safer flying today than it was 15, 20, 30, 40+ years ago. Improved weather radars, standard operating procedures, weather forecasting, back up/redundancy systems, pilot interfaces, communication systems… all of these and more really give pilots such a better picture of what is going on now.
Also, if you are getting on any long haul flight these days, it’s either going to be a Boeing or an Airbus. Neither of them are perfect but with every (incredibly rare) accident or incident, the above systems and procedures are investigated thoroughly by regulators and improvements are enforced.
I have infinitely more risk getting into my car and driving to the airport once than getting on a 1000 flights.
You're not wrong. One of the hard things to combat is complacency. Just because it is doesn't mean it will always be.
You're really missing the point. McDonnell Douglas were allowed to take over Boeing in 1997 and set about demolishing the engineer led safety culture. That's why disaster designs like 737 MAX were allowed on the market. Worse yet, they captured the regulator after trashing their own quality inspectors and convinced FAA and others that they could self certify.
All to make a faster, bigger buck. And the two 737 MAX crashes were not random - they were inevitable. The recent Alaskan one could have brought the "hull loss" tally to three with approx 500 pax killed. This is systematic risk taking, not some random event occurring.
Boeing will cease to exist as we know it within a few years.
So what point am I meant to be getting? I was merely giving another point of view to the notion that we all should abandon flying in Boeing aircraft (or any airliner for that matter).
I know what happened to Boeing and how these accidents came about. All I’m trying to say that right now is the safest time in history to get into an airliner of either flavour and go somewhere.
I know it’s whataboutism, but Airbus has killed over 1500 people. (Probably no whistleblowers though). Many incidents go without being reported. Because of the door plug loss, anything involving Boeing is getting more coverage now. (Did you see John Oliver’s Boeing story recently?). But where do we draw the line? People use iPhones without thinking of the suicide nets installed at their factories to catch the child slaves who throw themselves out windows. Maybe they fixed that. Maybe not. I’m still happy to fly Boeing, because, statistically speaking, it’s exponentially safer than driving.
I very much hear you, but for me it's the *why* of those two major Boeing crashes, and internally how that place operates when it comes to manufacturing planes. It sits... badly with me. And this suicide just makes me skin crawl!
I haven't been able to get this out from under my skin, since I listened to it as a Daily episode years ago: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/23/business/boeing-737-max-crash.html
You know the suicide nets thing, was more of a statistical truth than anything.
FOXCONN employed 400,000 people at the one site.
And China's suicide statistic is 1:10,000
So the 6 suicides, were 4 less than would have been expected.
I feel terrible for John Barnett and his family. Suicide or not, Boeing is responsible for over a thousand deaths, including John’s. And the reason? Greed, pure and simple.