Boeing's Profit Over Safety Culture Exposed in New Netflix Documentary

A new documentary series on Netflix, Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing, sheds light on the company's history of prioritizing profits over safety. The series follows a string of alarming incidents, including two devastating crashes that resulted in the deaths of all 346 people on board.

According to the film, when Jim McNerney took over as CEO in 2005, he brought a business model from General Electric that emphasized cost-cutting and maximizing profits. However, this approach led to outsourcing and off-shoring, which compromised safety standards.

The series highlights the stories of whistleblowers who risked their careers and reputations to expose Boeing's declining safety standards and disorder inside the company. It also follows the families of 737 MAX crash victims as they seek justice.

Boeing's financial compensation for the crashes was a mere $444.5 million, which is less than what some executives received in bonuses. The company's commercial airplanes division has not recorded a profit since 2018 and has lost over $40 billion in eight years.