Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing review – like a horror movie … only this is real life

In 2022, Rory Kennedy exposed the aviation safety scandal in which 346 people died – but since then, a plane door has blown out mid-flight and more whistleblowers have come to the fore.

Will anyone pay for this? It is unfortunate that a sequel was required to Rory Kennedy’s 2022 documentary feature, which alleged that the profit-driven culture at a US aeronautics firm led to two plane crashes and the deaths of 346 people.

But given the lack of corporate accountability evident at the end of Downfall: The Case Against Boeing – and the apparent complicity of regulatory body the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) – it was inevitable.

Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing opens with a rundown of a significant development in the story: the mysterious death in March 2024 of John Barnett, a former Boeing employee turned whistleblower.

Barnett, a contributor in the first film, was in the middle of a deposition when he was found dead at his hotel, which investigators ruled a suicide.

Is this another casualty to add to Boeing’s mounting death toll? And is the alarming aviation safety scandal – supposedly resolved in November 2020, when the FAA lifted its grounding order on the Boeing 737 Max – in fact still ongoing? Continue reading...