Boeing’s Response to Alaska Airlines Flight 1282: After Five Years of Warping, Now It’s Time for Reopening, and Why We Are Getting Closer
Boeing made big promises to the Justice Department in order to avoid prosecution after those earlier Max 8 crashes. A door plug blew off the plane in midair, causing heightened scrutiny to the deal.
“We’ve known it for five years, and I think the rest of the world is finally waking up to it, that these weren’t just isolated incidents,” Mark Pegram said.
Clifford and other lawyers for the crash victims argue that Boeing has violated the terms of its deal with the DOJ. If federal prosecutors agree, they could seek to extend the settlement, essentially keeping Boeing on probation even longer.
News emerged earlier this month that the Department of Justice was opening a criminal investigation into Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, which took off from Portland, Ore., shortly after 5 p.m. PST on Jan. 5, bound for Ontario, Calif.
On January 5th, two days before the DOJ and Boeing’s deal was set to expire, the door plugs on Alaska Airlines flight 1282 blew out. And lawyers who represent the crash victims’ families say that timing is critical.
The families are “optimistic” that the DOJ will be “more strict with how they look at this new criminal investigation from the Alaska Airlines case,” said Robert Clifford, a lawyer in Chicago whose firm represents families of victims from the Max 8 crashes, as well as passengers on board Alaska Airlines 1282 when the door plug blew out.
There was no serious injuries in the most recent incident. But Clifford says the Justice Department has begun sending letters to those passengers informing them that they might be victims of a crime.
“I have seen letters to clients,” Clifford said in an interview Thursday. That’s an important step, he says, because it’s something the Justice Department did not do after the Max 8 crashes.
“There’s changes that need to happen. There’s no doubt about it. But we’re going to do so diligently,” said Boeing’s chief financial officer Brian West at an investor conference this week. We will not rush or go too fast.
The professor at the Utah College of Law said that Boeing had promised to change its corporate culture to make safety a higher priority. “But none of those promises seem to have been kept.”
The Max crash victims’ families are being represented by a former judge who is expert on the Crime Victims’ Rights Act. He argues the Justice Department didn’t consult with families before striking a deal with Boeing.
In February of last year the Justice Department was found to have violated the victims’ rights by a federal judge in Texas. But O’Connor did not grant the families’ request to nullify the deal.
Mark Pegram: The Case for a Loss of a Large Panel from the Boeing Aircraft Accident. A Washington, D.C., Investigating the Investigative Action
Pegram, who is from a family represented by the law firm, said they are more frustrated and angry now that the information has come out. “To see that five years on, the culture is still there where production defects are covered up, documentation is inadequate, whistleblowers aren’t being listened to, and there are huge problems there.”
Pegram says the family has kept fighting the case because they want accountability for Boeing and they want the company to make safer planes.
“Sam was somebody who fought for justice,” Mark Pegram said. “As you can imagine, it’s not easy to keep giving these interviews. But the reason we do is because we want our family members’ stories to be heard. They are not just a number.
The plane was able to climb above 16,000 feet but quickly lost the large panel and it was frightening for the passengers to not be able to use their phones. The flight returned to the airport and made an emergency landing almost exactly 20 minutes after it took off.
When asked about the investigation and the letters to potential victims on Friday, a spokesperson for the FBI’s office in Seattle told NPR, “Per DOJ policy, the FBI does not confirm or deny the existence of an investigation.” A Boeing representative said the company also declines to comment.
The passengers were told in the message by Mark Lindquist, an attorney representing them, that they should contact the FBI through an email address that was created specifically for people who were on the flight.
“I’m contacting you because we have identified you as a possible victim of a crime,” the letter from a victim specialist with the FBI’s Seattle Division begins.
Allegation of Boeing and Alaska Airlines Failures in a Low-Redshift Aircraft Collision after the Modeling of a New Flight Control System
At least two groups of passengers have filed lawsuits against Boeing and Alaska Airlines alleging negligence and other failures. Plaintiffs in one lawsuit include Huy Tran, who was seated one row behind the door plug.
“It’s not like when somebody bumps your car on the freeway,” Huy recently told Portland TV station KPTV. “It’s like you almost died and the feelings that come with that.”
The National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary report found that four important bolts were missing from the Boeing plane — bolts that were meant to prevent the door plug from sliding upward, the agency said.
The debacle is the latest black eye for Boeing, whose reputation was already tarnished by deadly crashes of its 737 Max 8 jets in 2018 and 2019. The Max 8 version of the 737 is around 9 feet shorter than the Max 9.
The FAA and safety regulators were misled about the new flight control system on the 737 Max, which was said to be by key Boeing employees.
The deferred prosecution agreement was set to expire three years after it was filed. The agreement allows the DOJ’s Fraud Section to take another year to investigate if Boeing fails to fulfill obligations, including a promise to strengthen its compliance and reporting programs.
