The Boeing 787: Broken Dreams l Al Jazeera Investigations

No matter how you may feel about (all) nation-state sponsored media outlets, AlJazeera deserves respect for this excellent footage they got from inside the factory. It's a few years old, but should have raised more alarm by now: [VIDEO]

It's worth watching Al Jazeera's series on the production of the 787 Dreamliner, and related cultural issues at Boeing after their merger with McDonnell Douglas [1]. Personally, I think it's worth taking with a grain of salt as it appears quite one-sided, but the interviews with Boeing ex-employees and head engineers are enlightening, and could go some way to explaining the lack of redundant systems (i.e. cost and time). [1] [VIDEO]

Check out this documentary on Boeing's sketchy manufacturing & QA process back in the days of the 787 release. It seems that the company has been toxic for a while now. [VIDEO]

Al Jazeera has a long report on YouTube [0] covering the allegations around Charleston, I know that they can be biased against the US but this report is quite eye opening. Even more given the interview with a VP (or director, can't remember exactly the position) being cut short by the PR person involved, the reports from workers inside the factory stating they wouldn't fly a plane built there, etc. [0] [VIDEO]

The MCAS is what brought Boeing issues into the zeitgeist, but I was aware of issues at Boeing ~ 18 years ago from friends who had worked there and Al Jazeera did a great investigation ~ 9 years ago ( [VIDEO] ). Boeing used to be the gold standard and as someone who researches such gold standards it was disheartening to see them give that up. But that happened very slowly and started a long time ago. Clearly diluting focus away from safety is an issue for whatever the reason especially when the safety of airplanes is declining. This should also be taken in context that many aspects of manufacturing have improved greatly over the past 20 years so even if everything else stayed the same the general safety should have been greatly improved. So the drag on safety by the culture is bad enough to overcome these 'free' gains and end up with even less safe planes should highlight just how bad that effect is.

Another worrisome development: [LINK] Al-Jazeera has really been on fire digging into Boeing. This video (though from 2014) was remarkable: [VIDEO]

The SC Boeing plant doesn't exactly come off looking very good in the Aljazeera documentary [1] on the 787. Just having a job shouldn't necessarily be the goal...the quality of the job and the rights of the workers to advocate for the safety of workers and the public are also things the Unions have traditionally done. I don't usually advocate for or against unions...I think they make sense in some situations and less so in others, but the Boeing case doesn't seem to be a good argument against unions. Boeing prospered tremendously when working with the unions in Washington state and it seems that a lot of their recent anti-union behavior is part of a number of decisions they've made that are quite short-sighted. [1] [VIDEO]

The story builds up over time -- it points to major problems at Boeing. e.g. [VIDEO] (The Boeing 787: Broken Dreams)