Mon 12 Aug 2019, 04:23 AM | Posted by editor
LETTER from Mark Langabeer, Newton Abbot Labour Party
Richard Bilton, Panorama’s investigative reporter, examines whether the iconic plane manufacturer, Boeing, placed profit before safety. Within five months of entering commercial service, two Boeing 737 Max passenger planes crashed and 346 lives were lost. A number of relatives of the deceased were interviewed, with many feeling that Boeing have questions to answer.
Bilton reports that the Max is a new plane that has proven to be a commercial success. However the body of Max is the same as the old 737, but has bigger and more powerful engines. This has resulted in the nose of the plane to tilt upwards and a modification was introduced to prevent this. This modification malfunctioned and forced the nose downwards, causing the plane to crash.
According to Bilton, the fault should have been rectified within six weeks. Five months later another Max crashed from the same fault. The Boss of Boeing has attempted to blame the pilots because they argued that the original modification could be overridden. A rep from the Allied Pilots Association disputes this because pilots hadn’t received the necessary training.
An aviation journalist pointed out that Boeing was more focused on raising share value rather than safety. It was reported that the boss of Boeing had received 70 million dollars in four years and over the same period, 70 million in dividends. There has been a trebling of share value over the past 5 years.
In my view, the likes of Boeing should be nationalized, with the company being run by reps from the workforce, trade unions and Government. As Boeing is an American firm, the trade unions in the US should establish a Party of Labour. If Boeing was publicly-owned, the first crash may have been avoided but the second crash should never have happened and was entirely the result of greed.
The programme is available on BBC i-player, here
