The Big Picture

Vincent Boland: Alaska Airlines blowout will not topple Boeing, but it seriously needs to get its house in order

One of Boeing’s problems in the past two decades was that its engineers were no longer in charge

‘Bolts that need tightening are the sort of thing you might find in a second-hand washing machine you bought at a car boot sale. They should not be found on a plane,’ writes Vincent Boland, after a door was blown of a Boeing aircraft mid-flight. Picture: Getty

“This stuff matters. Everything matters. Every detail matters.”

Just before the Covid pandemic, the plane maker Boeing suffered a severe and self-inflicted crisis. It was triggered by two fatal accidents involving Boeing 737 Max planes, flown by Lion Air of Indonesia and Ethiopian Airlines. The crashes, in October 2018 and March 2019, killed 346 people, including Micheál Ryan from County Clare, who worked for the United Nations.

Those tragedies were terrible. But it was Boeing’s ...