Boeing whistleblower reveals theory behind Air India crash

When Air India flight 171 to London crashed and exploded into flames moments after take-off from the West Indian city of Ahmedabad, the world watched in horror. All but one of the 242 passengers on board died when the aircraft plummeted into a residential area Thursday June 12. At least eight people in the area where it came down were also killed.
On Sunday, India's Office for Prime Minister Narendra Modi issued a written statement, 'The AAIB (Air Accidents Investigation Branch) has launched a detailed investigation, and the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is conducting a parallel probe under international protocols since the aircraft is American made.' Both Boeing – which manufactures the 787 Dreamliner airplane which crashed – and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced they had teams standing by to support investigators.
Meanwhile, Air India announced Wednesday that it would temporarily cut international flights on widebody aircraft by 15 percent. But while preliminary findings may be made public within the next few months, a full report into the tragedy isn't expected to be published for at least a year. And according to aerospace engineer and Boeing whistleblower, Joe Jacobsen, that delay is not only unnecessary, it could prove fatal. He knows because he's seen it all before.
Jacobsen worked at both Boeing and the FAA for decades. He is the man who raised the alarm about issues at the aeronautic giant in the wake of two fatal crashes involving the 737 MAX aircraft and killing a total of 346 people across 2018 and 2019. Last year, he testified at a senate subcommittee hearing on the 737 aircraft and Boeing's safety culture. Now, he has spoken exclusively with the Daily Mail to blow the lid on the finger pointing and blame shifting that, he said, goes on between airlines and aircraft manufacturers and needlessly delays the conclusion of vital reports into what lies behind crashes such as the Air India tragedy.
Jacobsen said, 'Investigators would be able to have a pretty good idea of what happened within a week, and I would think they definitely should have 95 percent of the information within a month.' Indeed, both of Flight 171's key information sources – the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder or black box – had been recovered by Sunday. He said, 'It only takes a couple of days to download and have a look at that.' But, Jacobsen said, despite these valuable sources, much of the actionable findings won't be released to the public or acted upon for months.
Shockingly, he went onto allege that part of Boeing's motivation in stalling on the release of potentially damaging findings, is financial. He explained, 'A lot of people are invested in Boeing and so they try and delay this stuff so people forget about it, or at least they can make their changes before the bottom falls out.' Indeed, these accidents take a massive toll on company finances. Boeing Co's stock closed at $203.75 on June 12, down 4.8%, after plunging as much as 8% in pre-market trading.
One week after the crash it had continued its downward trajectory, hovering around $198.35 on Wednesday. Certainly, analysts and investment firms have been quick to downplay the impact and immediacy of the Air India crash to their investors. RBC Capital Markets, the global investment banking and capital markets arm of the Royal Bank of Canada, issued an investors' note last week in which they cautioned against any rush sell-off on the back of the Air India crash. They stated, 'It can often take months to fully understand the causes of a crash, and the implications for Boeing and its suppliers.'
But from his experience, Jacobsen said, 'They know 95 percent of what happened after a week - but then the next 11 months are used up by people trying to control the message, and point fingers at one another, who's responsible, who's not responsible.' Jacobsen's worry is that, if the cause for last week's crash is a systemic issue across the 787 Dreamliner fleet, another crash could happen before it has been publicly identified and addressed. Indeed, with over 1,100 Dreamliners still in operation there has already been another scare. On Monday, another Air India pilot turned his 787 Dreamliner around 30 minutes into the flight, citing a technical issue.
The airline told Reuters that the decision to return had been made as a matter of 'abundant precaution' and the flight had landed safely - they did not disclose the nature of the technical issue. US officials have stated there is no immediate evidence to warrant grounding the rest of the aircraft worldwide. But in the absence of any findings, this approach troubles Jacobsen. He said, 'A lot of times when it shows up on one airplane, there's other airplanes that have the same or similar issue.
'We shouldn't be saying we're going to take our time and figure this out. No. We have to have urgency. There's another crash that could happen if we're not working as quickly as we can to get the information out as rapidly as possible.' This is not empty scaremongering. Jacobsen has seen it happen. He was working at the FAA when an Indonesian domestic flight, Lion Air Flight 610, plunged into the Java Sea 13 minutes after take-off on October 29, 2018. All 189 passengers on board the Boeing 737 MAX perished. Jacobsen recalled, 'I got the flight data recorder data a week after the crash, and it took five minutes to see what the problem was.'
But a full report into the disaster wasn't released for a year. In the meantime, there was another fatal crash when Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed six minutes after take-off in March 2019. In that instance all 149 passengers and 8 crew members were killed. Both incidents involved the Boeing 737 MAX and both were found to be caused by the same flawed flight control system. Boeing recently reached a $1.1 billion deal with the US Justice Department over the two crashes.
Jacobsen isn't the only one frustrated by the slow drip feeding of information. Lawyers for another Boeing whistleblower, Sam Salehpour, put out a statement on Friday, criticizing the FAA for sitting on a report about safety issues with the Boeing 787 - the same model as the Air India crash - and 878 for months. Salehpour went public with his concerns last year, stating that Boeing was using 'shortcuts' in the making of the 787 Dreamliner fuselage and sparking a federal investigation into the company.
But on Friday his lawyer Debra Katz expressed frustration at its slow progress. She said, 'The FAA previously represented to us that they had completed an investigation, suggested that it had meaningful and significant findings that supported Mr Salehpour's allegations, and it was going to release them imminently. 'That was months ago. We urge the agency to disclose the results of its investigation.' For Jacobsen the solution is clear. Issue findings promptly, allowing problems to be addressed and giving families the answers they need, or ground affected aircraft until the cause of these devastating crashes has been made public.
Because as things stand, he fears, more people could die while investigators and Boeing drag their feet and families wait. Boeing did not respond to the Daily Mail's request for comment. Boeing President and CEO Kelly Ortberg issued a statement following the crash which included the assurance, 'I have spoken with Air India Chairman N. Chandrasekaran to offer our full support, and a Boeing team stands ready to support the investigation led by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau.'

Try Our AI Features

Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:

Learn with AIFact CheckingText to SpeechAI Summary

Related Articles

Daily Mail​

27 minutes ago

• Daily Mail​

EXCLUSIVE SCOTT JENNINGS: I know why Trump has decided to destroy Iran's genocidal threat... but the MAGA idiots defending Tehran never will get it

I am safely back on US soil after a harrowing trip to the Middle East last week, when I witnessed the first days of Israel 's justified war against the Islamic Republic of Iran, the wellspring of worldwide terrorism. The experience solidified my belief, more than ever before, that President Donald J Trump's commitment to preventing the mullahs of Tehran from obtaining a nuclear weapon is not only critical for peace in the region but for the preservation of Western Civilization. We win… or else. From Tiberias on the shore of the Sea of Galilee to Jerusalem, I watched dozens of Iranian missiles in Israeli skies, triggering the Iron Dome missile defense system, which picked off and destroyed many of the missiles before they could strike their targets. But a few bombs did get through, killing at least 24 people and wounding many more. This week, an Iranian missile struck a hospital in southern Israel that had, thankfully, largely been evacuated. Iran's response to Israel's strikes on its nuclear facilities, military and leadership is sinister in one telling way: Israel targets Tehran's military. Tehran targets Israel's civilians. And with every Iranian missile I saw, I thought: 'Boy, I'm glad that thing doesn't have a nuclear warhead on it.' In those observations lie the great question for President Trump: Should the United States allow a radical dictatorship that seeks to kill innocents, fund terrorism and lead its followers in chants of 'Death to America' possess a nuclear weapon? The answer is quite obviously 'Hell no!' Does any sane person doubt that the Iranian regime, which refers to Israel as the 'Little Satan' and the US as the 'Great Satan,' would kill Americans? Indeed, they have for decades, targeting US soldiers and citizens through their various terrorist proxies. Over one thousand American deaths, in fact, are attributable to the brutal regime. And we must never forget that while the Iranian nuclear weapons program is clandestine, their intercontinental ballistic missile program is not. The regime parades these long-range weapons through their streets, and these missiles are designed to reach the American homeland. 'For 40 years they've been saying death to America, death to Israel, death to anybody else that they didn't like,' President Trump said on Wednesday, 'They were schoolyard bullies… This is just not a threat you can have, and we've been threatened by Iran for many years.' Amen. President Trump has long held this position, consistently and unequivocally – and it's one of the many reasons that I voted for him three times. Now, I am of course aware of the voices on the right arguing against any intervention. The sentiments range from pure isolationism to some bizarre sympathy for Iran and hate for Israel. Many have exposed their ignorance by asking: 'What has Iran ever done to us?' proving that there is such a thing as a stupid question. But Trump, and Trump alone, decides what it means to be 'America First.' And the vast majority of the MAGA movement will support the president if he decides to move against Iran, which does not have to include putting 'boots on the ground' in Iran. Trump is not an isolationist, despite some of his supporters trying to impute this idea to him in desperate social media posts. The president has always been for smart engagement, but that doesn't mean no engagement. What's more, public opinion firmly supports Trump intervening in this situation. Polling explored by CNN this week tells the tale: 83 percent of Republicans and 79 percent of Democrats oppose Iran obtaining nuclear weapons. Nearly 7 in 10 Americans support U.S. airstrikes to stop Iran's nuclear ambitions. For decades, Western leaders have tried to bribe (looking at you, President Obama), coax, or flatter the Iranian mullahs into abandoning their nuclear ambitions. All that failed, because they are fundamentalist radicals who aren't motivated by conventional diplomacy. What did work? Israel's ruthless post-October 7 dismantling of Iran's terrorist infrastructure in the Middle East. Today, the Iranian terror network — from Hamas to Hezbollah to the Houthis — has been decimated. This provides the opportunity to confront Iran without having to simultaneously fight a multi-front war against its terrorist proxies. And President Trump's strategic posture has made this moment possible. Let's be honest – he was cheated out of the Nobel Peace Prize following the signing of the 2020 Abraham Accords, which normalized relations between Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Morocco, and Sudan. And in the five years since, America has courted Saudi Arabia to join the agreement. It was the most significant step towards defusing the Middle East powder keg in decades. Just imagine today's conflict without such alliances? Also in 2020, President Trump ordered the US military to kill the 'Butcher of Iran' Qasem Soleimani, the head of Iran's Revolutionary Guards' Quds Force, which is responsible for operating their terrorist minions. President Trump reinstated sanctions on Iran when others begged for lenience. And he has backed Israel unequivocally while social media's keyboard warriors argued for him to abandon our special partner (we'll have to explore the thinly veiled hatred for Israel and the Jewish people in another column but my goodness is it ugly). Trump's 'America First' foreign policy rests on a simple moral premise: peace through strength, deterrence through certainty. This is now a once-in-a-generation chance to finish this fight by striking Iran's Fordow nuclear enrichment facility, which is a fortress buried deep in the mountains, designed precisely to survive such a strike while enriching uranium to weapons-grade. Destroying Fordow would not be an unprovoked escalation — it is self-defense, a clear signal that there is a price for threatening the civilized world and plotting genocide while crying victim to journalists. It is a righteous act that would protect millions of innocent lives from future war and weaken every tentacle of Iran's terror empire. This is a chance not just to make the region safer, but to restore true American deterrence — the kind that makes bad actors think twice before threatening our citizens and our friends. But whatever and however Trump decides to meet this objective, as a Trump voter and supporter, I say – let him cook. We voted for his judgment. He has more access to information than any of us. And he has a clear-eyed view of what a nuclear-armed Iran means for the world. Trump is leading the fight to preserve and protect Western Civilization from Iran and an axis of autocracies that are actively trying to destroy it. The president is now on the cusp of another historic action. The only issue now is how to proceed best.

Daily Mirror

an hour ago

• Daily Mirror

Russia issues 'catastrophic' nuclear warning to US as Trump ponders Iran strikes

United States president Donald Trump has not yet ruled out whether to use American nuclear weapons to attack the underground Fordow enrichment site in Iran Russia has sent a stark warning to the USA as it considers whether to use tactical nuclear weapons in Iran. The Kremlin believes that even if the Americans were to use their weapons carefully the consequences would be "catastrophic". Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told the Russian TASS news agency there "have been a lot of speculation". ‌ Asked about media reports that Donald Trump was still deciding about what to do, and had not yet ruled out whether to use nuclear weapons to attack the underground Fordow enrichment site in Iran, Mr Peskov said: "This would be a catastrophic development. But there are so many speculations that in fact, it's impossible to comment on them." ‌ The heavily guarded mysterious Fordow bunker is built into the side of a mountain near the city of Qom, around 60 miles of Iran's capital Tehran. It remains the most heavily defended known enrichment site in Iran, buried some 80 to 90 metres underground. Israel is believed to lack the capability to destroy the site on its own and would need the help of American bombers. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has said the goal of attacking Iran was to eliminate its missile and nuclear program, which he described as an existential threat to Israel, and officials have said Fordow was part of that plan. ‌ Russia has presented itself as a possible mediating force between US-backed Israel and Iran, although Donald Trump has publicly been reluctant to accept the offer. Iran's supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamene rejected US calls to surrender and warned that any military involvement by the Americans would cause 'irreparable damage to them'. US officials said this week that Trump had rejected an Israeli plan to kill Khamenei, later adding that there were no plans to kill him 'at least not for now'.

South Wales Guardian

2 hours ago

• South Wales Guardian

Pope Leo flags AI's impact on children's intellectual and spiritual development

History's first American pope sent a message to a conference of AI and ethics, part of which was taking place in the Vatican in a sign of the Holy See's concern for the new technologies and what they mean for humanity. In the message, Leo said any further development of AI must be evaluated according to the 'superior ethical criterion' of the need to safeguard the dignity of each human being, while respecting the diversity of the world's population. He warned specifically that new generations are most at risk, given they have never had such quick access to information. 'All of us, I am sure, are concerned for children and young people and the possible consequences of the use of AI on their intellectual and neurological development,' he said in the message. 'Society's wellbeing depends upon their being given the ability to develop their God-given gifts and capabilities' and not allow them to confuse mere access to data with intelligence. 'In the end, authentic wisdom has more to do with recognising the true meaning of life, than with the availability of data,' he said. Leo, who was elected in May after the death of Pope Francis, has identified AI as one of the most critical matters facing humanity, saying it poses challenges to defending human dignity, justice and labour. He has explained his concern for AI by invoking his namesake, Pope Leo XIII. That Leo was pope during the dawn of the Industrial Revolution and made the plight of workers, and the need to guarantee their rights and dignity, a key priority. Towards the end of his pontificate, Francis became increasingly vocal about the threats to humanity posed by AI and called for an international treaty to regulate it. Francis said politicians must take the lead in making sure AI remains human-centric, so that decisions about when to use weapons or even less-lethal tools always remain made by humans and not machines.