For Boeing, Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 live in infamy. The first plane crashed in October 2018 in the Java Sea shortly after taking off, and the second crashed in central Ethiopia only five months later. Both were Boeing 373 Max aircrafts, a newer and more fuel efficient model that had was certified by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in 2017.
Within two years of first entering into service, every 737 Max had been grounded after the same malfunction led to a combined total of 346 fatalities. Three years later, Netflix released Downfall: The Case Against Boeing, exploring how the company’s obsession with profit and maintaining a competitive edge led the former titan of aviation safety to the point of endangering anyone who flew their newest aircraft model—as well as Boeing’s efforts to deny their own complicity. This year, Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing takes a wider look at Boeing’s continued reputation.
Speaking to TIME over Zoom, she says the company “assured the flying public, as well as the airlines and Congress, that it had learned its lesson and changed its ways. It did seem initially that it had made some corrections, but soon after the 737 Max got [back] into the air, I started seeing the headlines again.” Kennedy has made documentaries about the Abu Ghraib torture scandal, the final weeks of the Vietnam War, and the impact that the death of her father—Robert F. Kennedy—had on her mother Ethel.
Freefall is her first sequel, motivated, she says, by Boeing’s refusal to improve its once venerated, now dire safety standards. In January 2024, a 373 Max 9 plane operated by Alaska Airlines lost a rear door plug in midair, plunging the 171 passengers into pure terror until the plane was able to land with no fatalities. An investigation found that Boeing had improperly fitted the outsourced fuselage and door plug parts in cost-cutting moves that once again resulted in danger.
Kennedy was also motivated by a highly publicized but personally-felt tragedy—the death of prime whistleblower John Barnett, who by the end of his 32 years working in quality control at Boeing had made detailed reports on the company’s manufacturing negligence. In March 2024, Barnett was giving a lengthy deposition against Boeing in South Carolina when he failed to appear for his third day of testimony. He was later found dead in his truck from a gunshot wound that the Charleston County coroner described as self-inflicted.
Barnett was a friend of Kennedy and lent his expertise to Downfall, and his interviews play throughout Freefall, forming what Kennedy calls a “defining thread" of the film. Frankly it's one of the things I love about filmmaking, you're on a journey. We followed what was happening and pivoted as necessary to pay justice to the stories as they were unfolding.” Still, to Kennedy the heart of the story is crystal clear.
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