Flight patterns, the plight of the rights, class actions

Pilots used to say, “If it’s not Boeing I’m not going.” For decades no other aviation company was held in such high esteem for its meticulous perfectionism matched with visionary innovation. But as Rory Kennedy lucidly outlines in her engrossing and disturbing investigative documentary “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing” their reputation took a near fatal hit on Oct. 29, 2018, when the Indonesian carrier Lion Air’s Flight 610 — flying one of Boeing’s hot new model 737 MAX airplanes — crashed shortly after take-off into the Java Sea. None of the 189 on board survived.

Boeing had invested a lot in the success of the 737 MAX, seeing it as a counter to the inroads made into their market by the European company Airbus. So they dismissed any suggestions that mechanical or design failure caused the crash and instead cited pilot error. After all, they argued, Lion Air was a small operation from a technologically backward company and its pilot surely had received inferior training (in fact he had trained in the United States and had an impeccable record). So they carried on business as usual. Until five months later when another 737 MAX, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 409, went down killing all 157 passengers and crew.

Still Boeing stonewalled, and Kennedy’s search for answers leads to a trail of incompetence, concealment, and greed. To make the new model competitive the engineers had to equip it with larger engines, which necessitated attaching a jerry-rigged gizmo to prevent the plane from soaring upward and stalling. Unfortunately, if the device failed, it would send the plane downward at an increasing velocity.

And nobody knew of the new instrument’s existence. To acknowledge this addition would require a delay for FAA approval. But Boeing needed the plane on the market right away, so they kept the device secret from everyone, including the pilots, who even if they knew what was happening would have only seconds to react when their plane began plunging to the ground at 600 miles per hour.

Kennedy shows the toll of this cost-cutting decision. The father of one of the Ethiopian flight victims visits the crash site and learns that there are no human remains, only a deep crater and scattered items like a child’s shoe and a safety belt.

Kennedy also traces the cause of the failure beyond this one flaw to the merger of Boeing with McDonnell Douglas in 1997 and an apparent change in corporate philosophy from one of pride in perfectionism to cutting corners and costs for Wall Street profits.

“Downfall: The Case Against Boeing” premieres on Netflix on Feb. 18.

Go to www.netflix.com/title/81272421,

The rights of whales

One explanation for the North Atlantic right whale’s name, probably apocryphal, was that it was the “right” whale to hunt since when killed it would stay afloat. Whether the claim is true or not, it was the favorite prey of whale hunters through history until the numbers declined to the point where Canadian and American law forbids any vessel from approaching within a few hundred yards of one. But as seen in Nadine Pequeneza’s suspenseful and sometimes heartbreaking “Last of the Right Whales” the hunters are not the problem anymore, rather the lines and nets of fishermen and the propellers of massive cargo ships present the biggest danger to the survival of the species.

Pequeneza was given special dispensation from the distancing regulations, and the up close and personal footage of these rare cetaceans, often mothers with calves, elicits awe and sympathy. She accompanies a wildlife photographer, a marine biologist, and a crab fisher in her investigation and follows the fraught efforts of whale rescuers to disentangle already scarred whales from fishing nets and lines. When a dead adult or calf is found at sea or on a beach, mutilated after a collision with a ship or torturously wrapped in ropes, those who have dedicated themselves to their preservation weep, and you’ll understand why.

“Last of the Right Whales” can be seen as part of the New England Aquarium Lecture Series at the Simons Theatre on Feb. 16 at 6:30 p.m. An in-person panel discussion follows the screening featuring the director Nadine Pequeneza; Heather Pettis, research scientist, Anderson Cabot Center for Ocean Life, New England Aquarium; and Marc Palombo, lobsterman. Michael Conathan, senior policy fellow, Ocean and Climate, Aspen Institute Energy and Environment Program, moderates.

Go to www.neaq.org/learn/lectures/upcoming-lectures.

No more proof needed

Some think wearing masks to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in school classrooms is a needless and intrusive precaution. But it has nothing on some of the measures being taken to protect kids from school shootings. Todd Chandler’s detached, nonjudgmental, and incisive “Bulletproof” observes some of these practices starting with an elaborate shooter drill in a school conducted by adult staff members. People walk down a corridor chatting when shots ring out. They dash through doorways, and inside the classrooms people drop as if shot, others administer CPR and first aid, barricades are piled up, while outside gunshots continue to blast.

It’s handled smoothly and matter-of-factly. A sign on a blackboard reads, “Let’s end the year with a bang!”

Chandler intercuts these incongruous, alarming scenes with shots of normal school activities such as cheerleader and band practice, classroom lessons, and recess. But you never know when an alarm or drill will break through the everyday behavior sending kids and teachers into survival mode. One student asks whether the drills themselves might be traumatizing.

Employing a non-editorializing, Frederick Wiseman-like style, Chandler presents scenes and sets up juxtapositions that make their point more acutely than if he provided commentary. A young woman dismayed by school shootings quits graduate school to design and manufacture bulletproof hoodies. A security officer opens a safe to show the arsenal of AR-15s stored there because of “the importance of superior firepower.” Another woman practices shooting in a computer simulation and hits an innocent bystander. “Your goal is to save kids, not kill them,” the instructor advises.

Many measures to combat the threat of school shootings are proposed and demonstrated. An obvious one — regulating the guns — is ignored.

“Bulletproof” can be seen on Feb. 14 at 10 p.m. as part of the PBS series Independent Lens. It can also be streamed on the PBS Video app.

Go to www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/bulletproof.

Peter Keough can be reached at petervkeough@gmail.com.

This story has been updated to correct the name spelling of a panelist in the post-screening discussion of “Last of the Right Whales.”