11: The Boeing Whistleblower Conspiracy | Red Thread
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This is the great red thread. No, that's definitely not it. Cause the next line is my name is Jackson. Where's, where's your story? I don't see it. The high part above it. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.

You're sitting in a small, confined seat. Cramped. The air is dry. Your neck aches. Each vibration that runs through the seat reminds you of your innate misery. A person behind you sputters out a raspy, rattling cough. A baby cries loudly somewhere in the distance and you feel pity for the people closer to the unending noise. The air is so dry, and all you can think about is that you're surrounded by at least 100 other people suffering the same existence.

just sitting alone, together in a cramped tube full of other people's farts. It's not a thought you want to have, so you attempt to push it from your mind. Your seatmate nudges you, not with intent, but with the careless shuffling of a person similarly stuck in a cramped seat. Your other seatmate, an elderly old man, snores. A friendly but overworked voice seizes your attention. "Would you care for a drink?" "Um, what are the options?" "Well, we have lukewarm water or deflated soda."

I guess I'll have the soda. That'll be $7.99, hun. Never mind. I'll just take the water. She hands you the water in a small plastic cup. You can't help but think about how man's greatest and arguably most impressive invention has fallen victim to the throes of capitalistic greed. Here you are in the sky, hurtling at speeds and heights that would literally be inconceivable to a medieval farmer, and all you can think about is how unpleasant the experience is.

*laughs*

Oh my gosh. And this is the red thread. Welcome, everyone. Charlie, good job. That was a fantastic rating. You did great there. Yeah, that came from the heart. That was passionate fear, since I have a phobia of flying. Did a plane kill your family or something, Jackson? Every word of that was furious. It was filled with intent.

Yeah, we're going to get into it in this episode, but Boeing has quite the reputation currently for killing people's families. So I channeled that.

But yes, this is the Red Thread, welcome. I'm joined by Isaiah and Charlie, as per usual, and we're grouped up here to investigate a topic that's currently developing as we speak, really. Like, this is the most current Red Thread episode that we'll probably ever record, since the stuff we're going to be talking about happened last week, I think, right, Charlie? It was two weeks ago, yeah.

Unless someone important gets assassinated, well, I guess like within less than two weeks, because that's pretty much what we're talking about today. Then yes, this is definitely the most timely Red Threat episode.

Yeah. So this episode is about the Boeing assassination controversy, which if you've been keeping up with aviation and assassination news, happened a few weeks ago. So we're going to explore Boeing as a company, dig into the 737 MAX disaster, and also the assassination attempt, well,

well it wasn't an attempt the assassination of a whistleblower who dared to speak out about the Boeing mismanagement and corruption that led to the 737 MAX disasters it's worth mentioning it's not confirmed he's been assassinated it just seems very likely that he was by Boeing yeah but this is the red threat we gotta like

you know, build it up at the start. That was just for legal matters. Jackson's really brave being an Australian and all that. So I'm going to clarify, uh, everything that I say in this episode has a big alleged and theoretically over it.

And every word that is written is Jackson's. Do you know how planes work? Do you know how planes work? They can travel here. That's how planes work. They literally have the means to come here and assassinate me if they need to. Wait, you guys have airports over there? I thought you just had, like, kangaroos and spiders. You got airports? What the heck?

They land in a dirt strip out in the outback and then they have to drive all the way here. I imagined that, like, the way that you're doing this Discord call right now is you have, like, a hamster on a wheel that's powering, like, a generator to get your PC running. Like, that's just how I assumed all you all live. We only got internet in, like, 2010, realistically. Like, actually, like, internet that was usable, so you're not even that far off. See, what did I say?

So before we begin, a big thank you to the sponsors for this episode of the show. You'll hear more from them in the future. And also a quick mention that we're on audio platforms. You can listen to this episode from inside a Boeing plane if you're feeling brave enough. If you download the show on Spotify, if you do that, feel free to send some pictures to us because I would get a hearty giggle out of that.

That'd probably be pretty funny. And finally, this is a developing topic. So if you want to follow the sources and information that we currently have access to, because I'm sure there'll be more information that comes out over time, there's a link as per usual to the show notes in the description. So you can read along with us and make sure that you're seeing the information that we're seeing, basically. And I guess that's also a quick note because it's a current developing story.

There may be things that change over time that aren't as accurate as they were at the time of this recording, especially to do with the assassination. So just keep that in mind. We might have to do a follow-up in the future to clear up some changes or additional information that comes out. But everything that's here is pretty accurate to what we have right now, the information that we have available to us. So...

How much do you guys know? Charlie, I'm sure you know a lot about this case. Good about, yep.

Yep, you've been following it closely. Have you been following it exclusively to validate your own fears about flying? Is that why? No, I mean, it's just pretty interesting regardless. Even if I wasn't afraid of flying before, I would be now with all the information that's coming out about Boeing and like putting scrap metal on their planes just to meet production deadlines. And then the whistleblower who's finally going to try and hold them accountable for this kind of horrible, dangerous practice getting...

mysteriously overcome with the desire to unalive himself in a hotel parking lot like the whole story is just a head scratcher like it is a very scary compelling piece especially because it's something that is so prevalent in society with aviation so even if I wasn't afraid of flying I would be paying attention to this

Yes. Very vindicated. And I say it every time. Yeah. I was going to say, because every time that we bring up flying, I was also someone who was pretty terrified of flying originally, but just through exposure therapy, I guess I've gotten used to it. But with you, you've maintained your fear for the last 20, 30 years, and everyone's always telling you,

Air travel is the safest form of travel possible, Charlie. Yeah, I hear it all the time. I'm sure that, I'm sure you're feeling some level of vindication at the moment. I'm sure it does have the lowest amount of injuries, because typically... Oh, it does, yeah. It does, yeah. It's undeniable that it is actually the safest form of travel. No, I was making a joke that typically if there's a plane crash, there's not a lot of injured people afterwards. Oh, right. Just death, yeah.

No, but it is like that stat is true, obviously, because the raw amount of flights per day, I think it's like 100,000 flights per day. And like maybe there's a handful of crashes a year and that that rate has been declining over time. So it is technically the safest form of travel. But again, when you've got a fear like Charlie's where and also the understanding that if it does crash, you're just going to die. Like there's no injuries, as you said, usually it's always just death.

um when when all that it adds up then that those stats are pretty meaningless when it comes to the fear itself yeah so i can see why you're feeling vindicated isaiah how about you uh this entire episode was charlie's idea i for one love the military industrial complex and uh wish no ill will on boeing or any other no i'm kidding um

Yeah, so I'm actually this is the first topic we've covered that I don't know much about going into it. Everything else we've covered, I've at least done like surface level research, but this one I'm flying blind. So I'm excited to be the victim of the insanity this time. I'm ready for Charlie to convince me to be equally as paranoid about planes as he is.

I was going to ask, do you have any kind of fear about flying or anything? I think I'm in the same boat you are, Jackson. Like I used to be afraid of it like the first few times, but now I've flown so much that I don't really think about it. Um, but I can be, I can be swayed to become worse. So we'll see what happens. I'll make you worse.

I still get nervous on flights, but it usually subsists pretty quickly. And just through action of multiple 20-hour-plus flights, I've just gotten used to it, I think. Charlie, I would have imagined that you've flown a lot. I've flown a good handful of times, but it's always a nerve-wracking, anxiety-inducing, miserable experience. Yeah. Gotcha. It just doesn't get better. Okay. It doesn't. Yeah, it has not gotten better. And I've flown quite a bit.

How did you develop the fear in the first place? I don't know. As far back as I can remember, I've always been afraid. Like, do you guys remember the movie Flight of the Phoenix? No. Okay, one for two there. Flight of the Phoenix was a movie about a plane, like, crashing in the desert. And I remember when that movie came out, I was afraid of flying then. And I was, like, seven years old when that movie came out. So I feel like I was just kind of born with it. Yeah.

So let's talk about Boeing itself, the star of this episode. Boeing is a company that was founded in 1916 in Washington by William E. Boeing, cool name, originally called the Aero Products Company, but they then changed their name to the famous name that we now just associate with aircraft. Like Boeing, who thinks about Airbus really? Whenever you think about like an aircraft manufacturer, it has always just been Boeing, right? Yeah.

It's just like the most famous name in aircraft manufacturing. William Boeing famously viewed his company as a bold forward presence in the aviation market. And he piloted the company to also begin selling aircrafts to deliver mail across America. And then after the war, shaping the business to manufacture and sell airlines designed for commercial use. So they were one of the first companies or first manufacturers of aircraft to really

pivot from like the small scale stuff small scale aviation and military aviation to actual commercial like you know transportation basically so they really are they really set the stage for what aviation would become

And this quote from William Boeing says it all, really. We, quote, we are embarked as pioneers upon a new science and industry in which our problems are so new and unusual that it behooves no one to... This is a time period where people are still using behooves, by the way. Yeah.

Unusual that it behooves no one to dismiss any novel idea with a statement that it can't be done. William Boeing, 1928. So by all accounts, William Boeing was like very invested in just like the mechanical ingenuity of or excitement of aircraft.

People don't look like this anymore either. The picture of William Bowie, he's got like the old-timey, almost Hitler-esque look to him. That's an unfortunate description of him. I'm thankful that Hitler ruined only that kind of mustache, because it would have been very easy for him to ruin a cool one, right? Oh yeah, imagine if he had just a full beard like you guys do. That would have sucked.

Or if he had like a goatee or something. I was like, well, great. Now I can't do that anymore. He did ruin like Hugo Voss, the guy who made like the outfits for the officers. He ruined putting officers in leather coats. That was a cool idea. You can never do that again.

That's true. That'll always be associated with that. Yeah, but at least he didn't get a cold mustache. Because they did have, like, in terms of their outfits and shit, they did have style. Like, I like that. Yeah, they had, like, the best fashion designers in the world make them. Because that's what they chose to spend money on. Yeah.

It's unfortunate. So yeah, with the vision of carrying passengers from one side of the country to the other in a single flight, the company began to shift to turbo jets instead of propellers. Remember when planes used to be operated by propeller instead of turbo jet?

Airlines were unsure of the move, but 20 years later, the 707 rolled out and into service with Pan Am, Pan American Airlines. The public were amazed by the ability to fly coast to coast in a short period of time, and the orders for the planes erupted. And then the popularity snowballed into the progression of the original 737, which is, I think, still the most bought and most popular aircraft.

jet airplane ever made. I think most airlines operate a bunch of 737s and it's still used to this day. And it was released back in 1964, so this plane's been around for a minute. And then they created the 747 in 1969, which is the queen of the skies, which is that one with the plane with the hump at the front, kind of like the double-decker plane.

uh very very cool plane and so during this time period business was booming thousands of boeing planes flew through the sky and the public saw them as a trusted company in the aircraft world even coining the term if it ain't bowen i ain't going which is just fantastic that's just such a lovely little little saying the kind of guy who walks into an airport saying that very passionate about it like a sports team

I can't imagine people actually cared much about that back then. I think they would have just been amazed at flying in general. They wouldn't check the ticket to see it's a Boeing plane. When the turbojet first came out, I could imagine that being something to get hype about, right? Because air travel goes from... You could get from New York to California in five hours where it used to take a day, right? Yeah. So I get that, but... No, I get the excitement of the turbojet itself, but not like Boeing, the Boeing...

the Boeing company, like, being like, holy shit, I'm flying on a Boeing? Fuck yeah. Let's go! Yeah, I don't know, but I guess it speaks to their reputation at the time as, like, a very innovative company, and a very engineering-focused company, which is, from all accounts, what they were at the time. Which airline was it that began to have competitions of whoever could dress the best for their planes, you know what I'm talking about?

hmm who was that i don't remember that at all one of them when they started out like in the 70s or 80s there was a thing that whoever was the best dressed got their ticket refunded so that encouraged people to show up to the flight wearing like business suits and stuff so other people saw that and assumed only important people flew on that airline so everyone tried to get in on that airline

Wow, that's a really cool tactic because you're right, like turbo jets, especially at the time period, they commanded quite a high ticket price. They were seen as like kind of like a first class flight. I'm not sure who that would have been. Maybe Pan Am. Pan Am. Yeah, that sounds right.

It could be one of them. I'll find it eventually. But yeah, I only mentioned that to say, like, back when planes were kicking up and, like, airlines were starting, everyone had these cute little tricks or, like, if it ain't Boeing, I ain't going. Like, it was a very different vibe than what airports are now. Well, like I said, air travel in general back then had this, like, this mystique of, like, upper class kind of, you know, reputation. Whereas now it's like we're all crammed in a tube and we get, like,

fucking peanuts for like $10 to satisfy us. You see the old photos on those old planes where the entire cabin looks like first class and they bring out lobster to you and shit like that? Oh, I remember those, yeah. The meals they used to serve were really high quality stuff. Yeah, and now you'd be lucky if you get a ham sandwich on an eight hour flight. It's so good. We used to be a decent country. Yeah.

It's kind of like late stage capitalism for an industry. Remember what they took from you? Recently, though, news articles have read differently to the old saying, if it ain't going, it ain't going. I ain't going, I mean. That reputation has kind of been washed away. And instead, we're left with a reputation of system problems, electrical issues, legal issues, and now even a whistleblower's somewhat mysterious death.

So what has happened? Who wants to take a walk through memory lane? I'll take a trip down that lane. So 1997, Boeing acquired McDonnell Douglas, which is now often seen as a misaligned merger. The merger was worth over $13 billion. McDonnell Douglas had found it increasingly harder and harder to compete with Boeing and Airbus, lacking resources to be able to work on new product development. And this merger was Douglas's way out of the industry.

At the time, Boeing had an engineering-first ethic, which was quickly overpowered after this change by McDonnell Douglas' more profit money-making mindset. So you can see where the holes start to show here. And this is something that, even in recent articles, is mentioned quite a bit. Well, it was massive. It was a massive merger at the time. McDonnell Douglas had a significantly different ethos and, like, organizational structure behind the scenes, which...

Which kind of explains probably why they were in trouble in the first place. Because Boeing... You would think.

Boeing succeeded over them because they put technological innovation ahead of business in most senses. I mean, they were still a profitable business, don't get me wrong, but they definitely focused a lot on the engineering side of things, engineering excellence. And then somehow they merged with McDonnell Douglas, and McDonnell Douglas is the one that's seen steering the ship from then on. That has never made sense to me. Like, Boeing was the more profitable, more healthy company,

And they kind of like saved McDonnell Douglas in a way by merging with them. And then McDonnell Douglas like kind of infects the company. It's never made sense to me. I don't even think it's necessarily a product of merger. It's a product of the time where everything became more profit driven. So McDonnell Douglas' ethos of money making first probably is what was prevalent, not so much their structure. Yeah, you're probably right.

So this is a very cool name. Harry Stonecipher, the Boeing CEO at the time of the merger. Sounds like a Bond villain. I know, it does sound like a Bond villain. It's so cool. I love that name. I wish my last name was Stonecipher. That's so fucking sick. That's an anime name.

So he was determined to change the idea of the company from engineering firm to a proper business. Tens of thousands of jobs were cut and Boeing moved from Seattle to Chicago in 2001. This was done to remove the strategy council of business from being directly associated with other units of the company, thus allowing them to focus more on business decisions and long-term strategy plans without meddling from people actually building the planes.

mcdonald douglas's parasitic infestation of boeing after the merger has resulted in people joking that mcdonald douglas bought boeing with boeing's own money it's so funny because boeing like paid a bunch of money for the merger and then they basically just got taken over from the inside by mcdonald douglas i mean i guess the people running boeing at the time didn't care because they wanted more money as well i guess that's the implication anyway

Two years after the merger, Boeing was under threat. For the first time, Airbus had overtaken Boeing in the market, delivering 305 jets in 2003. Furthermore, they had been quietly working on a new, more efficient plane, the A-32neo, with an innovative and brand new engine designed for more economic flights. Announced at the end of 2010, it had a significant fuel-efficient engine and sold 667 in just one week, which was more than the Boeing 737 had sold in the entirety of 2010.

Boeing were unprepared and had nothing to compete with this. They were left scrambling to take back their share of the market. They had incorrectly assumed airlines wouldn't be interested in lower capacity but more fuel-efficient aircraft, and instead were investing directly into their fleet of larger aircraft. According to airline executive Gerald Arpey, they felt they needed to act more aggressively. Developing a new passenger plane could take a decade, which they didn't have.

Yeah.

The new engines were larger and heavier, so they had to be positioned farther forward on the plane, which changed how the air flowed around it. This actually resulted in the front of the plane tilting upwards in specific situations. So these new engines, like the aerodynamics aspect of the engines, needed them to be placed further upwards onto the plane itself, which created, I think it's...

hazy on the details but i think it creates drag right something like that which uh pulls the plane upwards because the air like moving around the engines kind of like lifts it and and uh produces that tilt which the engineers were obviously aware of but this was the only way for for the plane to work with these larger engines for the 737 to accommodate that kind of engine yeah

Yeah, exactly. And these new engines were designed for this new economy, basically, where airlines were more interested in planes that could circumnavigate the fluctuating fuel prices and stuff like that. So instead of investing in high capacity aircraft, they said retrofitted the 737s with these new engines that were capable of more flights between hubs, basically.

Yeah, fuel efficiency was king, so that's kind of why they came out with the 737 MAX. To counteract this issue, the tilting issue, Boeing created the Maneuvering Characteristic Augmentation System, or MCAS, which is now an infamous system, which I'm sure we're going to talk about very soon. It's described as one of their biggest and most fatal mistakes. It was designed to be a flight-stabilizing software that would automatically adjust the aircraft's flight controls under certain flight conditions, but...

Boeing refrained from telling many people about the system, including the pilots of the aircraft itself.

What could go wrong, right? Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. What? They had a system that auto-adjusted the plane and the pilots didn't know about that? They didn't bring in their guidebook. No, like I said, I didn't know about any of this going in. Oh, what? This is separate from the whistleblower stuff. This was a huge thing back when the 737 MAX came out. So it wasn't even that they refrained from telling the pilots.

They, so if I remember correctly in Jackson, you can correct me if I'm wrong. They didn't want to waste money printing new manuals or giving the pilots new like flight training, like new instruction on how to handle the system.

So it completely flew under their radar. They didn't know anything about that system and what it would do. It was less about the money from printing new manuals or whatever. We'll get into it in a moment because there's a paragraph about why the MCAS system exists and why. Yeah, you can keep going. I'm just, okay, all right. All right, so let's explain the MCAS system, Charlie. Yeah.

So MCAS obtained its data from aircraft's angle of attack, the AOA sensor, which is used to measure the angle between the aircraft's relative wind and its longitudinal axis. This in turn would help MCAS determine if the plane is at risk of stalling, then triggering corrective actions.

If by any chance the information relayed from the AOA sensors were wrong or the sensors were faulty, the MCAS system could erroneously send the plane into a fateful nosedive. This is exactly what happened on the Lions Air Flight 310 in 2008 and the Ethiopian Airways Flight 302 in 2019. Tragically, everyone on board both flights died. Just for audio listeners, Charlie, you meant to say 2018 then. It wasn't a 10 year difference. Yeah, you said 2008. Oh, sorry.

I meant 2018. So anyone who was around at that time period remembers when those two crashes happened because they were enormous in the news. Oh my gosh. It caused Boeing to ground all the flights. Hundreds of people died. It was a very tragic event. They also recalled the 737 MAX in response as well, if I remember correctly. They took the 737 MAX out of production for a little while and I believe airports refused to fly them.

Yeah, yeah, for a two-year period, I think. So, the sensor read data wrong and, like, pulled against the pilot to adjust, which caused a crash. Yes, so the AOA, the angle of attack sensor, which is a sensor on the peripheral, like, the outside of the aircraft itself...

could feed incorrect data to the MCAS system in certain situations. And then the MCAS sensors, or sorry, the MCAS system would operate on that incorrect information and essentially pull the plane into another state. Was there no way to override it, you would think? There was. There was. But since they didn't train the pilots on it and the pilots weren't aware of it, they didn't know they could override that system. So it just...

As we're going to get into the reason as to why the pilots weren't educated about this is so infuriatingly greedy. Yeah, alright, alright, yeah, sorry, go ahead, go ahead, keep going. So, Boeing had insisted to airlines that the pilots did not need any additional training to fly the new aircraft, and even more damning, all mentions of MCAS were removed from the operations manual that the pilots relied on.

As Boeing was in a losing race against Airbus, the 737 MAX needed to fly exactly like the 737 so that pilots didn't have to go through new simulator training for certification. And remember, just real quick, I didn't write this, but remember that it didn't fly exactly like the previous 737 because the engines were more forward on the plane, creating that tilt. So because of that, that's why they introduced the MCAS to offset that so that it would fly as close to the 737 as possible. You make a system...

That makes it feel like the old one. Exactly. So they can avoid. Accommodate for when that system doesn't work correctly. I think. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Training the pilots would have taken a lot of extra time, money, and would be unattractive to potential airline customers. MCAS was the supposed solution so that in certain, very specific situations, it would slightly adjust the aircraft to correct its flight position to create a more similar flying experience akin to the previous model that the pilots were used to. However, when this happened in the real world, pilots and MCAS were in a sort of fight with each other for controls.

With pilots trimming the aircraft manually and then MCAS trimming it again. And this cycle continuing with the pilot unaware that there was a hidden system essentially acting against them. It's so insane that they just pushed this system in to correct their, like, correct the behavioral differences of the plane itself. How the hell do...

Alright. Alright, sorry. I'm shocked you didn't know about this. This was big news. You don't understand. I never look at the news. I never watch the news. And like,

I maybe heard there was a plane crash and just, like, didn't look into it any further. I think that's most people. I knew about absolutely none of this, yeah. It's not that shocking that he doesn't know about this very... It is a central component of the crashes, obviously, but unless you go digging for, like, education about it, you're not going to find much information about the MCATs. Dude, imagine if, like, your family member died on a plane that you later found out was...

Only because the company wanted more money to win in their little business competition. Exactly. Through the system they lied to pilots about. Oh my gosh. The greed here, just like circumventing all traditional aspects of aviation security and certification and stuff like that, just so that they could compete against Airbus. It's just so offensive. It's evil. I mean, it's straight up evil. It's just evil. Yeah.

So after the tragedies of the Lion's Air and Ethiopian airline crashes, Boeing suffered a huge financial loss in 2022 and 2023. They paid out over a billion dollars to 737 Max customers. They were charged with fraud as well as conspiracy and entered an agreement with the Department of Justice with the agreement that they were to pay over $2.5 billion. They also grounded the 737 Max for nearly two years with regulators conducting investigations, a move costing Boeing around $20 billion in fees and fines.

So they didn't end up making more money in the first place. They made these decisions to make more money, and now they've lost over $20 billion, which I'm not sure how much that is in the grand scheme of things. They have a net worth of $109 billion, so... That is actually substantial, then. Honestly. That is very substantial. $20 billion is substantial, yeah. 20% of their net worth... I mean, that's current, so maybe it was more before they lost out on that, but still, that's a substantial amount. Yeah, that's substantial, but still, it's like...

they all these lives were lost for no reason basically well there was no reason in the first place but like they didn't get what they wanted at the end they didn't get their profits in fact they lost 20 of their company's value i mean that makes me a little bit happier you know they still lost you know but still it's you're right it makes it all like there's not even the the feudal gains were gained right it's all pathetic yeah

And it just keeps getting worse. Like this is very modern too. Usually you read these things, you're like, damn, that must've happened in like the eighties or nineties or even earlier, like fifties with Pan Am or something. I remember when Pan Am, I think it was Pan Am had like that very public crash. That was big news for a while, but this happened only five and six years ago. Like it's not long. Like this is very recent decisions that led to such tragedy that was entirely avoidable. It

entirely avoidable but this one is different to a lot of those previous crashes especially during like the 50s 60s 70s and 80s which is when crashes were way more common this one's different because it was almost entirely like greed and profit driven it's all yeah entirely

Whereas those previous ones during the 1900s or whatever were more to do with just like not having the education around aviation security. Like each crash was a learning lesson at that time, which would then like seal up the areas where more crashes would happen, which is why we live in such a safe period, relatively safe period when it comes to aviation. But it still happens now because of greed, especially on Boeing's part.

So, yeah. And so now we're going to get to even more modern stuff. And I'm sure a lot of you listening have heard some of these before. So the negative publicity just continues to, you know, accumulate day by day. For example, one United Airlines Boeing 777 experienced a wheel loss during takeoff. Another United Airlines aircraft slid off the runway upon landing due to the landing gear malfunctioning. There's been multiple instances of flames shooting out of engines that have been reported.

Certifications have reportedly been falsified. Debris has been discovered near electrical wiring. Loose parts have been found in door panels.

Components from scrap bins have allegedly been reused in installations and constructions of planes themselves. A Boeing 777 was forced to land after hydraulic fluid was leaking during takeoff. Additionally, engineers have been outsourced for low wages, with some employees reportedly being paid as low as $9.50 an hour. And the FAA criticized Boeing safety procedures as inadequate. And there's so many more that Jackson could have pulled from. Like two days ago, a Boeing flight engine blew up.

caught fire and they had to emergency land a week ago. This one I think a lot of you heard. The door blew off of a plane mid-flight. That's the one I focus on, yeah. Oh, you have it right here. So, most recently, Friday, January 5th,

A hundred and seventy one passengers and six crew members were aboard the Alaskan Airline Flight 1282 on a Boeing 737 Max. They departed from Portland at 5.07 p.m. with no signs of stress or worry from the captains or flight staff. However, minutes later, as the plane reached an altitude of 16,000 feet, a loud bang was heard through the aircraft. A hidden emergency door and its cover, known as a door plug, was suddenly sucked out from the aircraft, leaving a giant hole in its wake.

the change in pressure was so strong that if passengers were sitting in the seats directly at the impacted door they would most certainly have been jettisoned mobile phones were ripped out of hands a t-shirt was ripped off the back of a young boy the plane's interior around the gap was torn apart to its core and the surrounding seats bent and misshapen twenty minutes later at five twenty six p m the flight landed and just under ten minutes later at five thirty four it arrived at the gate with the injured instructed to stay in their seats as firefighters boarded the plane

Amazingly and luckily, no one was killed.

And here's a quote. All of a sudden, I heard like a big bang. I didn't know exactly what was going on, said one woman. I looked up and oxygen masks were hanging from the ceiling. And then I looked to my left and there's this huge, huge chunk, part of the plane just missing. The wind just extremely loud. And there's wind blowing everywhere. Imagine how horrifying that would have been. I couldn't even imagine. It's not even... I don't know if you guys remember this one. I don't know if you put it here, Jackson. Do you guys remember when... I don't...

I imagine it was probably Boeing, but on board one of the flights, the window blew out and then someone got sucked halfway out the window and died from it. I do remember that one. Was that a Boeing flight? I wonder. I wonder as well, because I'll look it up real quick if you want to take the next paragraph, Isaiah.

Yeah. I'm getting like progressively afraid and mad at the same time. I didn't know about any of this. I just went to my little airport with my little carry on and just like kicking my feet in the seat. Never thought about any of this. I actually, just because of the way it's trending in terms of like Boeing incidents arising, I think I would be more pressed now to just fly Airbus. Like I would actually put effort in finding Airbus flights. So it's actually having an impact on me.

If it ain't Airbus, I ain't happy Gus. I did look it up. So it was a Southwest airline. It was a Boeing 737 and its engine blew and a piece of debris hit the window, which blew the window off and sucked her out of the window. Well, partially out of the window, which killed her. I don't think it was a MAX. It was just a traditional 737. Yeah, it was a traditional 737. Yeah, many such cases and it seems to be increasing.

Yeah, it ain't airbus. I ain't about to bus. There you go. That's it. That's fire. We made it there eventually. They can hire me for their PR team. That's what they want. Every time I get on an airbus, I come. Nice. If that's how it worked, I might get tickets. I might plan a flight or two around that. Anyway.

Spirit Aerosystems, a vendor contracted by Boeing to construct airplane parts, in May of 2023 were working on a cabin door plug that was going to be fitted onto a Boeing 737 MAX 9. Aircrafts are limited in their seat offerings depending on how many emergency doors they have. There needs to be enough emergency exits for all passengers to safely use only half of the exits within 90 seconds.

Due to the size of the new Boeing MAX, the total number of emergency exits on the plane needed to be upgraded from 8 to 10. The new two added between the middle and rear of the plane. However, not all airlines would utilize the added space for new seats. Therefore, they did not all need the emergency exits to be, quote, active.

There were two solutions to this. They could deactivate the door and put a sort of cover over it. The passenger sitting next to it would not have a window, but would instead have an empty bulkhead. Or they could get a door plug where the passenger inside would still get a window and be relatively unaware that they were actually sitting next to an emergency door. When Boeing received... Cool solution. Yeah.

You didn't know you were next to an ejector seat like fucking Johnny English. The just rate of people getting on a plane don't know they're in the surprise chair at any moment. When Boeing received this part from Spirit, the plug was fitted similarly to how a normal door would be fitted, as it needed to be able to support the pressure it would be subjected by every flight.

However, there were some differences. There were two lower hinges with assist springs, which would allow it to be slightly lifted and opened if being used as a normal door. The assist springs did not serve a purpose as it wasn't being used as a door on this plane.

Two rollers were also fitted at the top of the door, which fitted into two guides. Once in place, the rollers and guides were blocked off by four bolts. This basically ensured that it was impossible for the door to move in any way. Once the door was on, 12 stop fittings and stop pads, six on each side, were placed,

It was verified as correctly installed by Spirit before it was sent to Boeing. Wait, hold on. If the door is secured to this degree, right, then how can it be used as an emergency exit? Oh, because I'm sure there's like mechanical instructions that are sent from, you know, the flight systems to disengage all those locks and stuff if there is an emergency. Yeah, okay.

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That's MeUndies.com slash RedThread for 20% off plus free shipping. MeUndies, comfort from the outside in. Thank you very much to MeUndies for supporting my junk, first of all, and also supporting the show. And thank you to you guys for listening to MeUndies. Over to Isaiah. Hello, everybody. Thank you very much for watching the show, but I wanted to take a minute to talk about today's sponsor.

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today. Thank you all so much for watching the ad. Thank you so much to Factor for sponsoring the show. It really does mean the most. Hope you all check them out. And now a word from our other sponsor. Hey, a little Charlie jump scare here. Did you know Jackson and I actually make comic books together? One of our series is called Plague Seeker and issue one just came out today. It's 80 pages of masterful storytelling, beautiful jaw dropping art. Speaking from a purely scientific perspective, no bias. This is a must own.

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amazing animations that we've made for these as well. So I can't recommend our comic series enough. Plague Seeker, Godslap, available at batteg.co, baby. Back to Boeing and the fucking crazy situations they find themselves in. Yeah, so continuing about this door...

On arrival, Boeing engineers began to check the aircraft for any issues or defects. Yeah, they're the most trustworthy individuals at this point in time. Yeah, of course, yeah. Pay $9.50 an hour, they're just going there, just like, yeah, that's probably good. Yeah, that looks like a door. Good enough. Yeah, yeah, that's definitely a plane. Good job, boys.

When they got to the mid-exit doors, they discovered five damaged rivets on the edge frame on the left side door. Essentially, to fix this issue, the door plug needed to come off. Once it was sent back and the issue was fixed, the door plug was placed back on, but they forgot to put back four important locking bolts.

resulting in the door slowly becoming a jar. How do you forget? Isn't there a checklist? How do you forget to put bolts back in place on one of the most important, crucial parts of the fuselage? It is insane. Especially after I just got done saying, how does this door even open? And it seems the answer is, you just don't put it on. Yeah, don't...

You don't connect it, apparently. Yeah, yeah. Just leave it open. Simple. That's how it opens. It would be fucking hilarious and believable that Boeing would somehow argue this in court and be like, well, this is actually an emergency safety procedure. It was intended to happen so that the door could come off faster in case of an emergency.

I would not put it past Boeing. Someone sitting in the cabin must have said the ancient invocation that blows doors off the engines. It's not Boeing's fault. There was a wizard on board that used to open sesame.

Uh oh, looks like we have to sit next to the evil door. It just might fly open. What is it, the TSA? The TSA is going to have to check for any rogue wizards going through security. You can't wear a robe anymore? What is this Necronomicon you have in the area on here? What do you plan on using this for? Going to put your wand through the sensors and stuff like that to make sure there's no magical residue? You can't step onto the plane with that hat.

That's great. And finally, on flight 1282, the door completely misaligned, resulting in it being torn from the plane. Following this, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun himself has encouraged customers to conduct their own reviews.

Hey, we don't feel like paying for anyone to like check our shit. Can you guys just do it yourself and like let us know? Just check the doors when you get on. Encourages customers to check the bolts. Oh my gosh. Like, hey, next time you get onto one of our planes, just make sure all the screws are there. You probably know where they're supposed to go.

Guys, it's probably fine, but don't take our word for it. In fact, we want you to do it yourself. And then in the court case, it's like, your honor, they checked the door. You know, it's really their fault. The onus was on them.

Every single passenger is deputized upon entering a 737 as an official certified inspector. I'm going to assume because Boeing's customers are the actual airlines and not us individually. So maybe he meant the customers as in the airlines conduct their own reviews. But even then, that's still such a dodgy thing to say still like, hey, yeah, you guys should check the doors. It's funny to imagine. We weren't looking.

When you sit down on a plane and the stewardess is giving you, like, the in-flight instructions, it's like, please ensure that all bolts and screws are in the correct place. On the secret door you don't know you're sitting next to. Yeah, when the oxygen mask dropped down during an emergency, they also drop an Allen wrench. It's like, okay, now everyone tighten your shit quick. The quick, the evil door did it.

And he says, Dave Calhoun says he fully supports FAA's audits and investigations. Yeah, because he knows that no matter what the FAA says, it doesn't matter. What else are you going to say? No, you can't take me without a warrant. I want a lawyer. Yeah, like, duh.

However, the NTSB chair has said that the footage of the Boeing employees working on the door plug was overridden by Boeing. How does this always happen? How do cameras suddenly malfunction in corruption cases? Oh, they got rid of the footage of them working on the plane. It was overridden. So they're not actually supporting the audit and investigation if they're not handing over...

I also will say like, we haven't even got to the conspiracy part of the case yet. This is just, uh, the facts of it. And I know nothing about the conspiracy, but I already believe it. I'm already, I'm in like, just reviewing this level. This is all, this is all proven facts as corroborated by the FAA. And, and,

even bowing themselves really right i'm saying whatever conspiracy we're accusing them of allegedly they definitely allegedly happened yeah i i it's this is only the second conspiracy i believe in and i i really think there's compelling evidence that boeing killed the whistleblower what's your what's your first one out of curiosity the jeffrey epstein didn't kill himself oh yeah yeah yeah of course of course gotcha

This next paragraph, I see you covered the very interesting stuff here. I'm excited. During FAA's six-week audit of Boeing and their critical supplier Spirit Aerosystems, which was prompted by the Alaskan airline disaster, they found multiple instances where the company allegedly failed to comply with manufacturing quality control requirements. Out of the 89 audits conducted by Boeing, only 56 passed.

what meanwhile 33 failed so wait just real quick uh it was uh audits conducted on boeing not by boeing which is an important distinction yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah oh yeah it's a crazy amount of audits that failed just straight up so they're batting for like a 50 average on their uh

on their success rate. Ugh, Spirit fared much worse with 7 out of 13 produced audited failings.

They found that Dawn... What? No way. No way. They found that Dawn dishwashing liquid was being used as a makeshift lubricant during door fittings and a hotel key card was used to check a door seal, which are not approved practices. I can't believe those aren't approved practices. Wait a second.

Where does it say in the technical guidebook that you can't use Dawn dishwashing liquid? What are you meant to use then? It's like the Air Bud argument. I mean, there's nothing in the rulebook that says a dog can't play basketball. Why can't I use a hotel key card to check the door seal? It's blowing my mind thinking about how many, like, what is there? 100,000 flights per day?

Let's say half of them are Boeing. There's 50,000 Boeing flights up in the air at any given day. How many of them have been checked through the Dawn dishwashing liquid tactic and the hotel keypad, keycard tactic? This actually, this makes me kind of...

black pills a little bit because it's like there's some things okay say for example there's a car manufacturer right who it turns out they have like horrifically unsafe vehicles well made like that is kind of easy to circumvent because we can always go buy another car right but it's planes are in a weird place where you're kind of at the mercy of

What airline is doing what flight with what plane. And it's not like anyone can just go start their own plane company, right? Yeah. So, man. Gosh, this is depressing. I mean, that's how the airline industry has always operated. It's the implication of just inherent trust, right? Exactly. We just have inherent trust in these companies to get us from point A to B without dying. And it's that trust that drives the profits. And they are corroding the trust right in front of us with Dawn dishwashing liquid. God damn it. Yeah.

they're using these tactics to I wasn't afraid of flying when we started recording to be clear I was fine with it but now I'm still not afraid I'm still not like super afraid of flying as long as I'm on an airbus I think they're doing much better yeah as long as I am not on a boat um

For many, this felt like deja vu. There have been multiple cases of fuselages being ripped apart in certain conditions. Back in 1988, a large portion of the roof of an Aloha Airlines 737 plane tore off mid-flight due to poor maintenance and mental fatigue. A flight attendant was ripped through the opening. And look at the picture there. Look at the picture of the fucking plane. That's scary.

The entire fuselage is ripped off. You can just see the seats. Imagine flying at what, like 18,000 feet. I think it was only like 18,000 feet for this flight because any higher, everyone would have been sucked out due to the change in pressure.

So yeah look at like all the seats I imagine being in those seats as the fucking fuselage is ripped off and now you're just like seeing a 360 view of just the sky. You're suddenly in a convertible yeah. Yeah so fucking terrifying I couldn't imagine anything worse. I doubt any one of those people have ever flown since that would have been life changing. Yeah.

Yeah, I can't imagine you landing and being like, well, we still have to make the connecting. True. What's your soonest flight out of here? Yeah. I can't wait to get back on another plane. Surely this can't happen twice in one day. This next one is a more tragic situation, and it did occur at over 20,000 feet, which is when that kind of change in pressure would rip people out of their seats, basically. Oh, boy.

Then, a year later in 1989, a Boeing 747, United Airlines Flight 811, to Auckland from Hawaii experienced a cargo door failure in flight when 32 square meters of fuselage ripped from the aircraft at 23,000 feet over the Pacific. Tragically, nine passengers were sucked from the aircraft and were never found. Bro.

absolutely terrifying terrifying just sitting there on the on the plane like asleep one second next second you're being ripped out of your seat through a hole in the side of the plane oh my god falling into the ocean oh yeah cool actually the when i was flying over to la last time uh i was over the pacific ocean and i had like this what are they called not not like a lucid dream but what's the dreams where you like

you're aware that you're kind of dreaming sleep paralysis almost i think anyway i had like yeah yeah yeah go ahead we won't get i had a terrifying nightmare a very descriptive nightmare where i i was in my plane seat and the plane was going down and i could feel all the sensations of it going down and then i woke up and we were fine it was i was like that gave me ptsd that entire flight i was like on edge the entire rest of the flight and that was just like a fake dream yeah

I was like, I thought I'd seen like a Final Destination fucking like premonition. Yeah. Tragically. I can't imagine actually going through it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Pilots desperately navigated two failed engines, a damaged wing, inoperable systems, and a massive hole in the airplane before landing in Honolulu 20 minutes later. Dozens of passengers were injured. But kudos to those pilots for somehow landing in that condition. It's incredible that they're able to... I thought damage to an aircraft like that would be just like it immediately explodes in midair due to the depressurization. You would think, yeah.

Yeah, but no, they're able to land it fairly safely, relatively safely. And that's just so impressive. They pulled a... What was that pilot who landed in the Hudson? Sully. Sully. Yeah, yeah. Real Sully up there. Yeah, pretty cool on them for that. That is something...

Like, we're talking really bad about planes and stuff like that, but something I've noticed is every pilot I've met, like commercial pilot, is incredibly well-trained. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that is the one cool detail. They feel like actual captains who know what they're doing. Well, that's the entire point of all these regulations. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, they take it away from the pilots.

And like, that's another reason I think a lot of these tragedies, like it was nine people killed instead of an entire plane of people killed. Right. Situations like that. Yeah. Like, again, if, if, um, if Boeing had done its fucking job and not put profits first and put the MCAS system in the manuals and required the pilots to go through the correct training that they were meant to go through, then these situations likely would have never happened. Yeah. Yeah.

you know, because the pilots do stringently get trained. I think they have to go through simulator training every like six months or so to recertify themselves and stuff like that. So they're constantly trained and the FAA makes like several mandates updating guidelines and stuff and requiring certification for pilots again. It's a very training heavy field. There's...

I don't like to become a pilot is an enormous accomplishment in itself because you've gone through basically years and years of just overwhelming training for that one specific type of plane that you're going to be flying. So it's definitely not the pilot's fault in most cases. No. And the reason that you're mentioning all of these like plane tragedies is because a lot of these are attributed to manufacturing issues and Boeing. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, normally the issue arises because it takes control away from the trained people and puts it in systems that fail. Yeah, if the systems fail, the hands steering the wheel isn't going to make a difference. Yeah.

How did you lose a hole on the roof? My word. Depressurization. It's just, again, these are all examples of Boeing's kind of inability to manufacture things

good planes at this point in time where this is happening enough.

Or perhaps more frustratingly, not an inability to, but an ineptitude to because it doesn't make as much money. Yeah, exactly. It's more greed driven, definitely. As recently as last week, 50 people, this happened like this week, actually, I think, 50 people were injured on a 787 Dreamliner, which is their most recent new plane, on a LATAM Airlines flight when the plane suddenly dropped, resulting in passengers being flown away.

to the ceiling and impacting the ceiling. Apparently people hit the ceiling so hard that some of the roof panels broke. That's so fucking scary. A passenger recalls looking up at the roof and it appearing like a person had been glued to the ceiling.

probably with dish washing soap. There was dish washing soap on the ceiling. LATAM Airlines has said that the airline suffered from a technical event during the flight, which caused strong movement. But it has also been reported potentially that a flight attendant accidentally hit a switch on the pilot seat, which pushed the pilot into the controls, forcing the plane to nosedive. But who knows really at this point if that's just Boeing propaganda or if there is a system, it's like a systemic issue on that plane.

It's entirely possible a lot of these mistakes and errors are due to airlines themselves going their responsibilities or traditional pilot error. But the evidence certainly seems to be pointing at manufacturing issues at Boeing in most cases, which is just undeniable, I think. Right. Yeah. I will say that the plane dipping really quick.

I wonder what kind of manufacturing thing that could be, or it could just be the flight attendant is kind of a funny explanation. Like, oops, I almost crashed the plane, guys. It's somewhat believable that this one was pilot error, but, you know, when you just add everything up in terms of the history of the last 10 years. I mean, yeah, it's not helping their case, you know? Might as well be their fault, yeah. Yeah, it doesn't take away the other situations anyway.

Recently, the Department of Justice, the DOJ, has opened a criminal investigation into the Alaskan Airlines 737 blowout.

which was the door being ripped off. They have already begun contacting passengers and crew, including pilots and flight attendants. This investigation is reportedly assisting in reviewing whether Boeing complied with its previous settlement with the DOJ that resolved a federal investigation into the safety of its 737 MAX planes after the Lion Air and Ethiopian airline crashes, which involved the faulty MCAS, well, it wasn't faulty, but the MCAS systems in general.

Boeing has acknowledged to Congress that it cannot find any records of work being done on the door panel on the Alaskan airline plane, saying, we have looked extensively and have not found any such documentation. Ziad O'Jackley, a Boeing executive vice president and chief government lobbyist, has said that, to quote specifically. They also claim that all footage from the time of the door installation has been overridden. And since then, Boeing stock has seen a drop of over 20...

over 20 ironically in their desperate pursuit to make more and more money so that's kind of good at least that they're that they're being hit where it where it matters to them but yeah now we get into the real reason i think they get away with all this stuff because this is the one thing about bow and i've always known they're like intense level of government lobbying oh yes they're they're enormously entrenched in the government charlie did you want to take this one

No, he's left. He's going to catch a flight. Sorry, I was hawking up a big bunch of mucus in my throat. What'd you say? That's cute. It's just because Boeing makes you sick, right? That's why? Yeah, Boeing makes me sick. That's why. You can take the next one.

Okay, so this is about the political influence and the relationship with the FAA. So since 2017, Boeing and Spirit's political action committees have apparently collectively invested over $65 million in lobbying efforts and federal campaign contributions. Boeing helped shape the language that weakened the government's ability to approve new airplanes, as reported by the New York Times in 2019.

Boeing's representatives currently serve as members on the subcommittee for the FAA's Aviation Rulemaking Advisory Committee. This committee is tasked with recommending airline industry regulations. Senator Chuck Schumer pushed for Boeing representatives to no longer serve as formal members of the committee, although...

Although granted, there are still representatives on a subcommittee, the Transportation, Aircraft, and Engines Subcommittee. I don't know how that isn't an enormous conflict of interest there where the Boeing representatives are directly serving as members on FAA's committee that creates the rule set. That is just such a crazy level of corruption, in my opinion, that just goes unchecked.

In 2019, Chuck Schumer called the ARAC a clandestine committee that acts as a proverbial blanket with their lack of transparency and comfortable cover they provide for companies like Boeing. A recent example of their political maneuvering, Boeing was on track in 2022 to miss an important FAA deadline to update safety features for the cockpits of the 737 MAX 7 and 10, and Boeing pushed for an extension.

Asserting that their model was perfectly safe, Senator Maria Cantwell received nearly 200K in contributions from Boeing Political Action Committee and employees before then assisting in pushing through legislation to exempt Boeing from the deadline. Her

Her proposal would grant exceptions for two MAX aircrafts. Senator Roger Wicker also received $57,000 from Boeing over the previous election cycle, and he also pushed for Boeing to receive an extension. Like, come on, if you're going to sell your fucking soul to these giant corporations that don't care about killing 200 plus people in plane crashes, can you at least do it for more than $57,000 fucking dollars? He did.

So the way that this works is 57 K is what's reported like above book. He definitely got so much more on the backend under the table. Right. Yeah. So it's, it's not actually what he sold his soul for. It's much more.

Boeing managed to secure the waiver even despite the opposition from family members and victims from previous crashes in 2018 and 2019. It contained limited additional safety requirements and was considered a classic example of lobbying horsepower, as said by former senior Boeing employee Ed Pearson, who now runs a nonprofit for aviation safety. As a further example of Boeing's intrinsic ties to the government, they also recently moved their headquarters to Washington, a move to help increase their lobbying.

Yeah, they just have a room set up in the White House. It's just... There's just a room where the lobbyists sit all day. Yeah, the Boeing operations headquarters right next to the Oval Office. Boeing has allocated hundreds of millions of dollars towards political lobbying, consistently ranking among the top 10 companies engaged in lobbying activities since 1998. Additionally, Boeing holds the position as the leading exporter and defense contractor for the United States. Ahem.

Oh my goodness, it's flaring up my mucus here. Yeah, it's making me real sick.

Given its long-standing and close relationship with the government, Boeing is expected to stick around even through its tumultuous period. They're simply too entrenched with the U.S. government to fail. The FFA has also been criticized over the years with the relationship between them and Boeing described as cozy. Mary Schiavo, a former U.S. Department of Transportation and FAA Inspector General, said it's been hostage to the industry literally almost since its inception. She also said that the FAA basically turned their job over to Boeing...

letting them self-certify, self-inspect, and pretty much just tell the FAA when the plane is ready to officially be certified. Others are on board with this statement, with Congressman Mark Solmier saying that the relationship between Boeing and the FAA needs to change. It's also reported that emails between the former employees wrote that presentations for regulators was...

like dogs watching TV because the regulators didn't understand what they were seeing. Which is, you love to hear that like dogs watching TV or when referring to one of the most important means of travel there is that's good.

It just shows how confident the Boeing employees, these Boeing representatives are, where they're like, "Oh, look at these fucking idiots, don't understand how our planes work." Stuff like that. The people whose job it is to understand if planes are safe, they're like, "Look at these stupid dogs, look at these animals, they'll believe whatever we tell them." Yeah, exactly. Oh my god.

So I'll finish this for Charlie since he's struggling. No, I've got it. I'll make it through. Let me finish what I started, damn it. After the 2018 and 2019 crashes, part of the blame was put on the FAA for giving Boeing too much control over its own safety checks, as was made evident by Boeing somehow including an MCAS system that was obfuscated from all reports and still made it into the air across multiple airlines. The FAA says that it would work to implement improvements identified in its report after the incidents.

Congress also passed bipartisan legislation, which would require the FAA to strengthen its oversight on the industry. In 2024, after the Alaskan Airlines incident, the FAA lacked... The FAA blamed lack of resources and funding for how hands-off they've been with Boeing, even after the previous legislation... I'll be right back.

Charlie is literally getting assassinated live on red thread right now. I can't believe Boeing invented Poland to kill trouble. He is struggling with this Poland. All right. So yeah. What do you think, Isaiah? I'm pretty mad. It's funny. I've done this song and dance I don't know how many times.

oh, why does this corrupt group of people not get, you know, held accountable by the peacekeepers? And then it's like, oh, that's right, they are the peacekeepers. That's what it always is. That's how it always goes. And then it's like, oh, how are these people allowed to get by regulations to cheat the system that allows people to die time and time again? Oh, that's right, because the people that hold them accountable get their campaigns funded by them, and they're also on the panels that are supposed to hold them accountable. And it's never...

There's a bad part of the system. It's that the whole system is full of bad parts. And it just makes me violent. It makes me contemplate things I shouldn't talk about on a podcast. Unless, of course, it's Charlie's idea. Then it's fine. I can't think of a single reason why lobbying should be allowed at all.

Hot take. I'll say it. I'll take the heat for this one. Lobbying should be illegal. It shouldn't be a thing. I'll say it. I'll say it. But that's what I mean. Is there a single argument for its existence that doesn't just come down to politicians getting paid? I have no idea. I can't think of one. When you're watching...

I've got one for you. If you have a lobbyist for something that's a very important issue that's being overlooked, right? Like if someone's lobbying for something that isn't otherwise being addressed, I suppose. But shouldn't it be still done through just traditional means and not monetarily? Like financial means?

Didn't say it was a good argument. I'm just saying it's the only thing I can even possibly rationalize. The world would just be a far better place if they just actually made this illegal. But of course the people that would be in charge of making this illegal are the ones that benefit from the lobbying. The infinite level of frustration to hear people exonerate Boeing, to see that the room they are in is sponsored by Boeing, is the most...

Yeah, man. I know. Mistrust and fear within the company. Let's talk about that because that's an important aspect of this going into the whistleblower stuff before that. I think it's just important to set the tone of what it was like inside the company as well. So a report published on February 26th of this year found that the, this is a quote, the expert panel observed a disconnect between Boeing's senior management and other members of the organization on safety culture. No kidding.

Interviewees, including ODA unit members, also questioned whether Boeing safety reporting systems would function in a way that ensures open communication and non-retaliation. Those are both very important aspects of the aviation industry's safety mission.

mechanisms basically. The expert panel also observed inadequate and confusing implementation of the five components of a positive safety culture, which are reporting culture, just culture, flexible culture, learning culture, and informed culture. They also reported on employee confusion, especially among different work sites and employee groups, while procedures and training is complex and in a constant state of change.

The report also states, quote, the expert panel also found additional issues at Boeing that affects aviation safety, which includes inadequate human factor consideration commensurate to its importance to aviation safety and a lack of pilot input in aircraft design and operation. So Boeing is like, who needs to know what the pilots care about when it comes to plane design? Who needs pilot input?

They're the least important aspect of a plane, apparently, to Boeing. Talk from employees was also rumbling throughout the company. A conversation between Boeing pilots and employees about software issues and problems with the flight simulator for the new 737 MAX included discussing situations where the company concealed problems from the FAA during certification. In another conversation, an employee stated, quote, this airplane was designed by clowns who were in turn supervised by monkeys. So...

Even the internal attitude from just regular Boeing employees is not very pro-Boeing at this point in time. This is another quote from an email chain.

So one employee says, would you put your family on a Mac simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn't. And then the other employee answers, no. So like Boeing employees do not trust their planes at all, which is not surprising given that they see firsthand how they're put together and the quality assurance practices in place at Boeing. In 2019, a report by the publication Al Jazeera included secretly...

Hold on, you cut out there for a second. Did we loot? Did Jesus, did Boeing cut him? I think they got him. They got you at the fall and then they got him. Oh no. No, Jackson, they killed him. Oh no. No. They did it. The plane got there. It was so fast, we couldn't stop it. He's typing in the chat.

Oh my god, he just lost his whole call, I guarantee it. No way. Ugh, I had a feeling I should be recording the whole call. Oh no. Ugh, I had a feeling! His power went out? There's a chance the file was still saved though, right? Yeah, I would think, right? Like if power cut out it could just stop the recording. Yeah.

He starts reading about Bowen's private logs and the power to his whole house shuts down. I really hope you didn't lose the file. Holy fuck, that'd be infuriating.

So in 2019, a report by the publication Al Jazeera included secretly filmed footage inside a Boeing facility. Multiple Boeing engineers were filmed saying they would not fly on the planes they were creating. One particular employee even went as far as to say he would, but also said that he has a kind of death wish too.

15 employees were asked and 10 said that they wouldn't fly on the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner that they were manufacturing at the plant, citing that they had seen the quality of work going on at Boeing and that it was, quote, sketchy, which is not how I want my planes described. Super comforting. Happy to hear that. Yep. So that's kind of the attitude within Boeing overall at this time. It was very negative towards their own aircraft and

Which ties in nicely to the final aspect of this case, which Charlie, I'm sure you would love to take. Yep, this is all about the whistleblower. John Barnett. He was an American-born aerospace engineer and longtime Boeing employee turned whistleblower. Born February 23, 1962 in Pineville, Louisiana, Barnett worked at Boeing for 32 years with a long stint from 2010 through 2017 working

working as a quality control manager for Boeing's 787 Dreamliner airplane at the South Carolina plant. As quality control manager, John was directly involved in ensuring each plane had passed supposed Boeing quality checklists, essentially being one of the few individuals who was innately aware and knowledgeable about Boeing's supposed commitment to producing reliable and safe aircraft. Due to stressful working conditions, Barnett's doctor advised that job-related stress would likely cause a heart attack unless he were to quit. He retired in 2016.

Upon his retirement, John Barnett came forward to the press to make allegations about various claims of malpractice at Boeing. His initial claims first came to the BBC and included allegations that many employees were severely overworked and Boeing was not providing consistent and appropriate maintenance to the aircraft they were responsible for manufacturing. He also made the troubling evidence-based claim that the oxygen systems of the brand new Boeing 787 Dreamliner range of aircraft might be faulty or otherwise defective as a byproduct of lax maintenance at Boeing.

He provided tests that showed a failure rate of 25% for the oxygen systems. In 2019, Barnett would appear in New York Times article where he would go on to make further claims about metal shavings that posed a danger to the aircrafts themselves. Boeing denied all allegations made by Barnett. However, the FAA has since conducted several reviews that seem to corroborate Barnett's claims.

Yeah, 25% for the oxygen systems. So one in four people on those planes are not getting oxygen in the case of an emergency. That's still a positive survival rate. That's acceptable losses. It's not bad, and they wouldn't need oxygen anyway because the plane will be in a nosedive. What are they going to do, tell someone?

It's actually probably better for Boeing if no one gets oxygen so that way there's no squealing. Have you heard that old conspiracy theory that the reason you brace with your head against the chair in front of you in a plane crash is to immediately break your neck? Oh yeah, I saw that. The old Boeing survivors pose.

So then here's some more claims from Barnett. So reprimanded for email usage, Barnett asserts that a senior manager reprimanded and downgraded Barnett for his usage of internal email services as a tool for expressing process violations in lieu of face-to-face conversations, which Barnett assumes had meant he shouldn't put problems in writing. This was seemingly a way for Boeing to avoid a paper trail of problems that Boeing would prefer swept under the rug, which is relevant with the Alaska Airline flight 12, 1282, which is the door blowing off.

where Boeing apparently doesn't have any written documents pertaining to the faulty installation of the door module. Barnett also alleges that the manager pushed Barnett to get more used to working in the gray areas and help find a way while maintaining compliance. This speaks to a direct willingness and culture at Boeing where employees and managers are willing to sacrifice quality control to keep productivity high and ensure deadlines are met.

Then there's also defective parts claims, where Barnett claims that a senior manager installed a defective, scrapped and dented hydraulic pipe in a plane. Barnett followed procedures and filed a complaint with Human Resources, which was unable to substantiate the claim after claiming they had followed through with an investigation. He also claims that he would go on to continuously raise issues of several more missing and defective airplane parts to management with the fear that they had either been accidentally or intentionally installed in aircrafts.

Allegedly, management instead directed him to finish the paperwork on the missing parts without necessarily determining where they had gone.

Barnett claims no further action was taken by managers. His claim that workers did not sufficiently follow component tracking procedures with the goal of preventing delays on the production line was backed up by a 2017 Federal Aviation Administration report that determined that at least 53 non-conforming parts were missing with the order that Boeing take remedial action. Barnett additionally claimed that they had to change the locks on the scrap storage section of the facility where faulty or defective parts were kept,

Because people would continuously grab parts from the storage to install on planes. You have to lock up the scrap shed because they keep trying to build planes with them. Just fucking get rid of them, burn them. Stop this from being installed in these planes. It's like everyone's rats running around Scavengy like, no, stop. Tony Stark built this Boeing in a cave with a lot of scraps.

There we go. There's our pop culture reference. Metal shavings. Barnett further alleged that he had discovered what he described as clusters of metal shavings that were erroneously left near electrical systems for flight controls in several 787s.

The safety implications of this was that if there were shavings, if, or sorry, the implications of this was if the shavings were to penetrate the electrical wiring responsible for powering the flight control systems, the results could have been catastrophic. He claims that he had repeatedly urged his managers to take actions, but that they insisted trans, but they instead transferred him to different parts of the plant.

In 2017, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a directive mandate on removal of shavings before delivery of planes to airlines. Boeing would go on to claim that they were complying and working to improve the design to avoid the issue, but they had determined the flight was not a flight safety issue. Determined the issue was not a flight safety issue. Oh, determined the issue was not flight safety. Yeah. Okay.

Yeah, yeah, so they were like, eh, no, it doesn't matter. Yeah, the guy they hired to determine the safety of planes keeps being like, this isn't safe, so they keep firing him and putting him somewhere else. Yeah, they just keep moving him around. It's great. So...

Wouldn't it have been easy to fucking just vacuum the metal shavings up after installation? One would think. One would think. Well, deadlines got you working in crunch and scrambling, putting fucking scrap metal and toothpaste and shit on the planes. So in 2024, Barnett continued to issue warnings about Boeing and their work culture and vehicle safety, particularly following Alaska Airline Flight 1282.

Barnett would go on to file an AR-21, which is a law that supposedly protects airline safety whistleblowers against retaliatory actions by employers, with the claim that Boeing had undermined his career because he had raised safety concerns at the Charleston plant, which was hampering his career progression and denigrating his career.

With the allegation that this was all due to him raising internal concerns about airline quality control and safety, which is illegal under the Air 21 law, which is designed to ensure that anyone within the airline and aircraft manufacturing industry are able to report mistakes and concerns without fear of retaliation and punishment by their employers. So it's to foster open communication, basically, so that they work together to rectify problems.

Yeah, it's an important aspect of airline safety is that people should feel safe and free to bring up these kinds of issues, especially when they pertain to manufacturing defects and stuff like that without any kind of reprimand or consequences to their own personal careers. Otherwise, if there is that fear of companies firing you and stuff, you're not going to bring up the issues in the first place. And then that's what would lead to aircraft leaving airlines

the hanger with these kinds of defects. But apparently Boeing still fosters that kind of, you know, personality inside that cultivates these kinds of issues still, even in spite of these laws existing.

Yep, that's Boeing. Barnett was in Charleston, South Carolina during the week of March 12th, 2024 for his deposition in his defamation lawsuit against Boeing. So it's worth mentioning he was in an active lawsuit against Boeing and he was in South Carolina. And on Saturday, he was intended to provide further answers to questioning, but did not show up to the downtown office of Boeing's defense firm for the final day of the three day deposition.

He did not respond to calls over that day or the following. He was found deceased shortly after in his truck at a hotel parking lot from what Charleston County Coroner's Office described as a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Prior to his death, Barnett reportedly told a family friend that, if anything happens to me, it's not suicide. Boeing responded to his death by releasing a statement that read, We are saddened by Mr. Barnett's death and our thoughts are with his family and friends.

Barnett's family claimed that he was looking forward to having his day in court and hoped that it would force Boeing to change its culture, though was suffering from PTSD and anxiety attacks as a result of being subject to a hostile work environment at Boeing, which we believe led to his death.

His lawyer told the CBS News that he was in very good spirits and really looking forward to putting this phase of his life behind him and moving on. We didn't see any indication he would take his own life. No one can believe it. The Charleston Police Department is currently investigating his death as of March 12th.

So Guy has spent the past several years of his life trying to take down Boeing. He's in a court case against them. After being very motivated to continue this court case, one day he's like, you know what? I've got a better idea. And just...

Yep, blows his brains out in the hotel parking lot in his truck. Pretty open and shut to me. Seems believable. Barnett was found inside his vehicle bleeding from his right temple with a silver pistol found in his hand and something allegedly resembling a note in the passenger seat. A groundsman told police that he had heard a pop around 9.24am, but the rain had apparently muffled the sound. Barnett and his lawyers had filed their first complaints in 2017 in Barnett v. Boeing.

It seems suspicious to say the least that Barnett would commit suicide when his case was finally in the final stretch. Family member told his lawyer, Turkowitz, what was written on the note, but that it didn't sound like John. Which, I imagine it didn't. It sounded like Harry Stonemason or whatever his name was. Harry Stonecipher. Yeah, Stonecipher.

So before getting into more of our theories and thoughts here, I think the biggest thing that makes no fucking sense here is not only the timing of it where he's like in the last phase of this, but also he decides to blow his brains out in the parking lot as opposed to his room. Why? That makes no sense. If he was going to kill himself, it'd likely be in his room, not in the fucking parking lot.

Yeah, that is a good point. I didn't think of that. Maybe he didn't want to do it. He didn't want to create a mess for like the house cleaners or something. And so he figured that his car would be the most. Well, then he's creating a mess for the tow truck company and every human being that would be walking outside and might see a blood splattered window. Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, I don't know why he would choose to do it in the car realistically. Well, because he didn't choose to. It wasn't a suicide that he consented to.

I don't want to do this, but okay. So, here's the... Let's address the aftermath. So...

It does ultimately seem unlikely that Boeing would plan to murder a whistleblower, but only because there are many other whistleblowers and it would be highly impractical for Boeing to assassinate all of them. As Maureen Tackick of the American Prospect writes as well, it would be unnecessary, especially given that Boeing has thus far enjoyed exceptional impunity without bringing about the mysterious death of any crucial witnesses. This is in reference to the affiliations and career histories of Boeing's attorneys and Justice Department officials, which

resulted in the deferred prosecution agreement or dpa that had prematurely ended the criminal investigation into boeing's conduct with no regard to the seven thirty seven max with boeing being let off with a paltry two hundred forty four million dollar fine and three years probation

There's an interesting connection here where lawyers who drafted Jeffrey Epstein's 2008 immunity deal are also connected to those who created Boeing's signed January 6th, 2021, because Epstein needs to come up in every red thread episode somehow.

It's actually crazy that they are connected though. I mean, I guess that at that level of like high level lawyering, maybe it's just a small pool and they're just constantly all working on like similar cases. It's almost like all the evil people. There's just like 30 of them. And we just... Yeah. They keep getting these cases.

But yeah, the DPA itself was like very, very just, it was nothing. It was like $244 million fine. And what amounted to like three years of good behavior from Boeing? Like, all right, Boeing, just work with us on the investigations and we'll let you off the hook, basically. That's what the DPA was, the Deferred Prosecution Agreement that the Justice Department gave them for the 737 situation.

Yeah, it's undeniable that Boeing has proved to be overwhelmingly immune to any legal consequences going so far as to prompt contempt for even federal judges in the DOJ. One judge, Beryl Howell, went as far as to claim that the department's resistance to the idea of properly conducting an investigation was causing it to jeopardize its own reputation in the eyes of the American people.

Ironically enough, the judge said this while ruling in DOJ's favor in a case filed by the families of the 737 MAX victims where they were requested the agency to hand over its files on the decision to close the Boeing case with the weak deferred prosecution agreement.

Eight days later, after the judge's comments, the Wall Street Journal posted an article that broke the news that the DOJ had opened a new criminal investigation into the culpability of Boeing in the Alaska Airlines January 5th incident involving a Boeing 737 MAX. They're just above the law, clearly. Like, no matter what, they just get away with things. Even the judges are basically like, yeah, this is kind of fucked up and it's kind of ruining our reputation with the public.

But our hands are tied, unfortunately. Yeah, anyway, I guess I'll continue with this. I'm just a cog in the machine. It's not my fault. Blah, blah, blah. Yeah. Yeah.

So with so many circumstances that serve as evidence of Boeing's malpractice, its failure of 33 of 89 FAA audits, the jammed rudder that caused the near miss in Newark wing coming apart on a San Francisco to Boston flight that was forced to make a premature landing. The use of dish soap and hotel room keys to check door seals. And of course, its failure to install a single bolt that would have prevented the door on the Alaskan airline flight 1282 from being ejected from the fuselage.

It's impossible to believe that the company would be able to argue it hasn't broken the DPA. But as the DPA is written, the only actual requirements of complying with the DPA are that Boeing cooperate fully with domestic and foreign regulatory authorities in any investigations during the three years in which it remains in effect. It's essentially toothless. Yep. Yeah. The whole thing is just saying like, well, you can make mistakes as long as you let us look at them. And they're like, okay. Yeah.

Or you at least pretend to let us look at them. Like with the footage being overwritten and all that. Yeah, there's a piece of paper somewhere that says we looked at them. As long as that happens, we're fine. Yeah. But even with the most minute and inconsequential of requirements in place, Boeing has still arguably effectively sidestepped or at least willfully ignored them. For example, the National Transportation Safety Board has accused Boeing of refusing to cooperate in its investigation of Alaska Airline Flight 1282.

Boeing maintains that it is cooperated fully and transparently, but that it is unable to provide documents that the agency is seeking because it doesn't possess the documents and, indeed, no longer documents the repairs and procedures the agency is asking for documentation of, in reference to the installation and maintenance of the door.

This is further evidenced and backed up by John Barnett's previous claims that Boeing has an internal culture that will aim to avoid any written record of faults and mistakes at any cost, choosing to lose documentation at any chance if it means they won't be held culpable with evidence pertaining to their increasingly lax quality control and maintenance standard. This has all led to the enormous shift in public perception of the company. The once famous phrase, if it ain't Boeing, I'm not going, is

is no longer relevant. Indeed, I'll be more comfortable flying an Airbus plane for the foreseeable future when possible. That's Jackson. Yeah, that was meant for me. I won't be comfortable flying any plane. You'll be slightly more comfortable if you're on an Airbus. Even you, I think. Well, there'd be a little reassurance that it's not made out of fucking scrap metal and toothbrushes and whatever, fucking dish soap and bubble gum.

well thanks thanks guys i was fine with flying until this episode and now i'm gonna be thinking about it cool so charlie charlie is very specifically i think uh on the assassination side of the aisle you think that he was definitely assassinated i do um what do you think isaiah um i mean for the sake of the show absolutely i believe any conspiracy we talk about but if i think about it

Objectively, maybe. It just seems...

like a lot of noise unless he was about to say i would have to look into it more if he was about to like really drop the bomb on something or maybe maybe at the end of this disposition like when the trial actually began he was prepared to present a bunch of like damning information like you know in records because part of a defamation trial if bowen was getting him for defamation is it's not defamation if you can prove the things you said actually happened

so maybe he was planning when they go to trial to like drop evidence of all the stuff that he said happened and maybe that would explain it um so perhaps it definitely could have been i definitely don't put it past them in a moral sense neither yeah and i don't i don't even think it's definitely possible this is another aspect of it i don't think it is bowing who

who would have carried out a hit. It's not like the boardroom got together and had a discussion and said, we need to kill this guy. Could have just been a single individual within the company whose career would be threatened by this information coming to light. So he just has it taken care of without consulting anyone else. So...

Yeah. Yeah, it could have been like a manager of his or something. It could have been anyone involved. That's normally how this stuff happens. Even in political assassinations, like when a government happens, it's normally not like a whole government who chose to kill a guy. It's one guy in a government who's like, this guy needs taken care of. Like, that's typically how it goes down.

My main hang up with the whole assassination idea, and I agree with you, Isaiah, mostly, I think it's definitely possible that it was something like that. My main hang up with the idea is just how much, I think Boeing would have been aware how much noise would have been generated by an assassination on a whistleblower. And I think they would have known that they would have had that kind of perception if that were to occur.

Um, so I don't know if it was necessary on their end as well. Like, like was said in the document, there's a whole bunch of other whistleblowers currently from Boeing. They already have this reputation issue. It's, I don't see why it would be necessary for them when they're pretty much invulnerable anyway. Uh, necessary is probably not the right word. Like, I feel like the reason they would have killed him in particular is just because of

how high profile he like I don't know any of the other whistleblowers I don't think many of you do but Barnett was in like the news he was bringing these problems to the public sphere like hey Boeing shit is made out of shit like they're using scrap metal it's not safe I wouldn't fly it like this kind of stuff like he he was a pretty important figure in getting people more aware of just how like

poor their quality was and he had a very high ranking position like he would be a very strong authority on just how bad their quality control is so it's someone people would put their faith in to know these things so I feel like he would be one of those people they'd be afraid of now whether or not they'd necessarily be like we have to kill him I don't know but maybe someone was panicking like hey if this keeps going if he keeps dropping these you know bombshells we're going to suffer big problems and maybe someone just

you know, impulsively decided we need to do something about it and decided to kill him. Because it just seems highly unlikely that someone who's right at the end of like a very passionate fight decides to take their own life. And if it's not suicide, then another thing that's equally possible is maybe Boeing started putting out like a...

like outside pressure on him, like, Hey, threatening his family. We'll do something to them. We'll, we'll make sure your family's in financial ruin. We'll, we'll make sure their lives are miserable. If you don't stop this, that kind of thing. Like they could have suicide. Yeah. They could have like coerced him into it. Like they, they mentioned he was suffering for like PTSD, PTSD and anxiety attacks. So maybe Boeing plays into that angle by making all of these like bigger threats that like make his anxiety even bigger and greater. Yeah.

So even if they didn't necessarily get it like fucking Agent 47 out there, like I still think they could have driven him to it, like forced it upon him, which I'd still consider like a hit. Yeah, yeah, it's definitely possible as well. My main counterpoint to my own argument before would be that it could potentially also be Boeing making a threat to all the other whistleblowers, like look at what we're capable of. Yes, just remember your place.

It could be something like that, but I don't know. Yeah, I think I'm still in between somewhere. It could also just be like a straight up, like entirely disconnected crime against him as well. It could just be like a, I don't know, a random hit almost. Well, I mean, it wouldn't be a random hit and then taking the time to write the note like that. It was clearly planned. It wasn't like he just came up and tried to steal his wallet. Yeah, true. Yeah.

I don't know. There's just so many different components here that are just so weird. Like you said, doing it in the parking lot, so strange. Doing it on the final day of a deposition in a lawsuit, so strange. Just a lot of these different aspects. But then even just the... It's just so strange for me to think about this multi-billion dollar corporation actually going through with something like this, if they were to. It's not too crazy for me to think that. I don't know. It seems like they...

With so much going wrong with their aircraft, the more they can push that out of people's mind as a concern, the better for business that'll be. And this guy was really making a lot of noise about just how bad this situation with Boeing was from a manufacturing perspective. So it seems like something they'd be cognizant of and afraid of. Yeah, fair enough. All right, that's going to do it for this episode of Red Thread. On that note, we covered everything and I hope that...

The main takeaway you get from this episode...

is fuck Boeing, just in general. That's what the Australian guy says. The American here in this call loves the military-industrial complex and thinks we should spend more money on weapons. So I'm happy my tax dollars go to them and lobbying lies that help them. And I personally love Boeing, and anything I've said in this episode was the Australian man's words, and I have an allegedly when I state them. So blame him, not me.

Yeah, I'm also booking a flight just so I can experience the joy of being on a Boeing ASAP. Yes, yeah, yeah. I can't wait to set at a secret emergency exit door. I'm excited. You're gonna love the panoramic views on the Boeing planes. You can look up at the sky. Panoramic views! It's a very immature joke that I wouldn't make about Boeing at all.

Alright, that's going to do it for this episode. If I die suddenly in a plane crash, just know it wasn't me. It was Boeing. Thanks guys. Thanks for supporting the show. Also, quick note to anyone watching. If you noticed anything funky with this week's episode, no, you didn't. Nothing happened. Nothing happened. Alright, bye. Bye. Bye, everyone.