As hundreds lie dead following the latest tragedy to beset a Boeing passenger plane, it is too early to determine blame.
Pilot error, engine failure and bird strikes are among the theories all being banded about. Only the recovery of flight AI171‘s black box flight recorders are likely to provide the concrete answers.
What is inescapable though is that this is an air disaster the plane’s maker, Boeing, could well do without.
Plane crash latest: 53 Britons on board
It sounds petty, in the midst of such a catastrophe, to be talking about the impact on a company, but this has been a civil aviation giant left deeply scarred, in the public eye, through its attitude to safety in recent years.
While the 787 Dreamliner’s record had been impressive up until today, the same can not be said for the company’s 737 MAX planes.
The entire fleet was grounded globally for almost two years following the demise of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 outside Addis Ababa in March 2019.
Women mourn next to the coffins of relatives who died in the Ethiopian Airlines crash in 2019. Pic: Reuters
All 157 people aboard were killed.
Six months earlier, a Lion Air 737 MAX, carrying 189 passengers and crew, crashed in Indonesia.
At fault was flight control software that has since been rectified.
That recent past continues to haunt Boeing.
It took those crashes to uncover a culture of cover-up. It amounted to not only a corporate failure but one of regulation and justice too, according to critics, as relatives were denied their days in court due to plea bargains.
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What happened to the Air India plane?
Just last month, the US Justice Department and Boeing agreed a non-prosecution agreement over those two fatal crashes in return for $1.1bn in fines and an admission that it obstructed the investigation.
It raises several questions over the US legal system and its ability to police corporate activity and incentivise playing by the rules.
Would a British manufacturer have been offered such a deal by US prosecutors?
As for regulation, we’re told oversight has been stepped up and the number of planes that Boeing makes is still subject to controls in a bid to boost quality.
The company has long denied putting profit before safety, but that is what almost every whistleblower to have come forward to date has alleged.
The production limits were implemented after a mid-air door plug blowout aboard an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 flight in January last year.
They are hampering Boeing’s efforts to restore profitability.
Read more:
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What we know so far about AI171 crash
A 5% fall in its share price at the market open on Wall Street goes to the heart of Boeing’s problem.
That is every time a Boeing plane is involved in an accident or failure, investors’ first instincts are to run for the hills.
Boeing says it is seeking more information on the nature of the Air India crash.
But whether Boeing’s plane is at fault for the loss of AI171 or not – and we have seen nothing so far to indicate that was the case – it’s clear the company has a long way to go to restore trust.
