June 12, 2025 • 18 mins
Moments after taking off, an Air India flight bound for London from an airport in Western India crashed with over 200 passengers on board. Hundreds have died and a search for survivors is ongoing.
On today’s Big Take podcast, Bloomberg’s Benedikt Kammel joins host Sarah Holder on what the crash of Boeing’s marquee 787 Dreamliner means for the company and the commercial aviation industry at large.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Just moments after taking
off on Thursday, an Air India flight bound for London
from an airport in western India crashed with over two
hundred passengers on board. The Boeing seven eighty seven Dreamliner
(00:21):
jet crashed into a dining hall at a medical school
while students were eating lunch. The cause is still unknown
and officials are still assessing the extent of the casualties,
though there are reports of at least one survivor. It's
the latest in a series of high profile commercial plane
crashes and safety incidents that have put passengers on edge,
(00:42):
and it's the first fatal crash to involve a Boeing
seven eighty seven Dreamliner, putting Boeing's safety record back in
the spotlight. Benedicaml at its Bloomberg's aviation coverage, and he
says the incident comes at a pivotal moment for Boeing,
whose new CEO has been trying to regain the public
trust after a series of safety incidents involving the company's planes.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
All of these things he's done. Whether this will now
get sabotaged by this accidents too soon to say A
lot of that will ride on what conclusions we can
draw from the accident.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I'm Sarah Holder and this is the big take from
Bloomberg News today on the show What we know so
far about the Air India tragedy, What the Dreamliner crash
means for Boeing and for the commercial aviation industry. So, Benedict,
thank you so much for being here. What do we
know about the Air India crash so far?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
So this aircraft, which is a Boeing seven eight to
seven Dreamline, it's a fairly advanced plane, almost twelve years old.
This is a plane that crashed just after taking off
in India. It was bound for London Gatwick Airport, was
due to land that tonight. Had two hundred and forty
two people on board, that is and crew two very
experienced pilots, and footage that we've seen so far indicates
(02:05):
that the plane was still in takeoff mode, very low
off the ground, just sort of over a couple of
houses and then sort of started descending again. It almost
looked as if it were landing. But then the next
image you see on the footage is of a giant
plume of smoke and essentially the plane going up in
a huge ball of flames. All we know is that
(02:26):
it doesn't look like it was sort of an external
strike of some sort.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Well, what do we know about the extent of the
casualties at this point in the day, both on the
plane and on the ground.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
The plane did crash into a very densely populated part
of the city, and so you can expect fully fueled,
fully loaded seven eight seven, which is a huge aircraft
landing or crashing into a residential area that will lead
to casualties on the ground as well. The first proper
official figure that we got from authorities was that just
(02:58):
over two hundred people and bodies have been retrieved from
the wreckage. Now, of those, we don't know how many
were on the plane, how many might have been people
on the ground, But obviously this is a huge number
and you should expect that number to rise.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
There's a lot we don't know about what actually caused
this crash. But what do we know so far based
on the data we got from the plane before it
went down.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
So we know that the plane was in takeoff mode
and it had just started its ascent, so it was
about six hundred feet in the air at that point.
It's twin engine aircraft. We don't know whether the engines
were fully functional, or whether one of the engines had failed,
or maybe even both of the engines at that point
of the departure. This is generally considered one of the
(03:44):
riskier moments of an aircraft journey. It's the takeoff and
the landing part where most things can go wrong. The
plane is fully loaded, the plane is fully fueled, it's
very heavy. The airport from where it was taking off
is known to how have a bit of a bird issue.
There are large flocks of birds in the vicinity. Now
(04:04):
this is pure speculation. We have absolutely no indication yet
that birds strike, as it's called, was a cause here,
But this is something that the authorities will be looking at.
The footage does not seem to reveal an obvious engine fault.
Sometimes in the past, when you have seen engines failing,
you see flames bursting out of the back or a
plume of smoke coming out of the engine. That's not
(04:26):
the case here. So we have what looks like a
clean takeoff. It looks like the main flaps of the
wings are not extended, so you have a clean aircraft.
The other big thing that will help is the retrieval
of what's called the black boxes. So those are the
data recorders that store the main flight parameters. Those are
(04:46):
the recorders that store the cockpit conversations, and those usually
give very good clues as to what might have happened.
One final thing to add is there was a may
day call from the cockpit shortly after takeoff. We don't
know what it said, but clearly the pilot, who we
know was very experienced, saw that something was dramatically wrong
(05:07):
and that led to the may day call. All these
things will have to get read out. Typically these types
of investigations can take days, if not months, for a
proper readout and then a final report that can really
take a long time.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
It's a horrible tragedy. When is the last time an
airplane crash of this scale happened?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
You really have to look quite far back, and more
than ten years. So there was the Malaysian Airlines aircraft
MH seventeen that was shot down over Ukraine by suspected
Russian missile that caused almost three hundred deaths, and then
Air India has not had a tragedy of this scale
all the way back to the mid nineteen eighties, and
(05:48):
that really gives you an indication of how rare these
occurrences are. We have had an increase in air accidents
in the last couple of months, and looking back into
the last year, there has in a greater number of those.
But overall, this remains a very safe mode of travel.
But people, obviously, when they see this, they think that
this is something that is on the rise. There are
(06:09):
more incidents, there are more accidents, but something of this
scale with more than two hundred dead people with a modern,
very well maintained aircraft with an experienced crew, that obviously
is an anomaly. Typically, what happens in these scenarios is
that the crash investigators take over. So you will have
the local investigators leading the charge. You will have police,
(06:32):
you will have the army, you will have a salvage mission.
First of all, all the focus and right now will
be on can we find survivors and then can we
retrieve parts of the wreckage that will help us solve
what led to this. So the NTSB, which is the
US investigating authority, they are dispatching a team there. The
(06:52):
FAA they're doing the same. Boeing will surely have a
team they will send over that. So this is very
much sort of a technical analysis this point. Erindia obviously
will have the role, should we say, with the more
humanitarian side of this, to really look after families who
are now wondering might my relative on the plane have survived,
(07:12):
and to people who have, you know, the sad assurance
that people have not survived, to look after them. But
really the focus right now is on search and rescue,
retrieval and everything else follows.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
After that, after the break Boeing's safety record and how
the Dreamliner crash could add to growing passenger anxiety about
airline safety. I'm sitting down with Bloomberg's Benedict Camel in
the wake of the Air India tragedy. Benedict, let's talk
(07:44):
about what all this means for Boeing, because it's just
the latest in a string of safety issues on Boeing planes.
One recent, much less serious issue I'm thinking of happened
last year when the door of a Boeing plane headed
from Oregon to California came off mid flight. So many
viral videos of that. Can you refresh us on Boeing's
recent safety record.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yes, and the safety record has obviously been problematic for Boeing.
You reference this one example, and yes there were no
fatalities in that incident, but it really sort of blew
the cover, as it were, off the safety lapses at Boeing,
at the manufacturing lapses, and it really led the public
but also authorities to rethink a sort of Boeing safety
(08:27):
standards and their manufacturing standards. So Boeing really slogged through
a very very difficult year after that. They had a
cap of the number of aircraft that they can produce.
The FAA said, you can make thirty eight seven three
sevens at a maximum per month. No more than that.
We want to make sure that you've got your sequencies
in your factory set up. We don't want you to
(08:48):
rush things. It cost Boing huge amounts of customer trust.
It cost Boing both with the public but also with
aline customers. It costs them huge amounts of money They
had to go to the market and raise and all
of this happened after two fatal crashes towards the end
of twenty eighteen one In twenty nineteen, so Boeing has
(09:09):
had a sequence of events that really, as I said,
shone the spotlight on the manufacturing, on the systems at
Boeing that were really subpar. This event here involves a
different aircraft. The ones I just reference were all about
the seven three seven as a sort of small Boeing
that most of us go on for short hops from
one city to the next. This is the seven eight
(09:31):
seven Dreamliner that's usually used on long international routes. So
this is the first time that Boeing or an airliner
has lost a seven eight seven.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah, tell me more about that aircraft that was involved
in this crash, the Boeing seven eighty seven eight Dreamliner.
What is its safety record? What do we know about
that aircraft?
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Well, this aircraft's safety record has lately been really stellar.
It's a very popular aircraft for a number of reasons.
It has a good size, so popular on long routes.
More than one thousand units have been sold. It had
a shaky start when it was introduced, or even before
it was introduced in twenty eleven, because it really pushed
the envelope on a lot of the technology. But once
(10:12):
it was out it did mainly very well. It was
briefly grounded because of some issues with batteries and the
fear of that they might catch fire. But once that
issue was out of the way, this is an aircraft
that has done very well. It's really sold in very
large numbers, and it has a really good safety record
and the fact that no seven eighty seven has ever
been lost in an accent is testament to that. So
(10:35):
it's a very important aircraft for Boeing. It makes a
lot of cash for the company. The seven three seven
Max took on sort of the image of a not
so trustworthy aircraft. That's not been the case with the
seven eight seven that's still considered sort of gold standard
in its class.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Well. A former Boeing worker, John Barnett, did raise concerns
about the Dreamliner. What were those concerns?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
He's not the only one. There have been a number
of whistleblowers that have come out and have said the
way that Boeing assembles this aircraft is subpar, that cutting corners,
and that really the plane should be reviewed, that the
FAA should take a much closer look. A lot of
this goes back to sort of the interaction between the
authorities and Boeing. There was a sense that for too
long the FAA let Boeing sort of self police itself
(11:20):
and that they could really sort of look after their
own processes at the factories and could sign off on
them in some ways. And that really came to a
halt last year with this blowout that we talked about,
and where the FA really took a very hard look
at its own role and its interaction with Boeing. Then
put a lot more people on the ground at Boeing
really slowed things down. So whether this will reverse this trend,
(11:44):
and whether you know the trust that Boeing has rebuilt
in the last couple of months, because Bowing was really coming,
as I said, out of this very difficult year and
was only now sort of gaining traction again. The production
numbers were going up, the cash was building up again.
The new CEO, Kelly Ordberg, he was seen as a
steady hand. So if somehow this accident reveals and again
(12:05):
this is pure speculation at this point, we don't know,
and it's way too soon, but if somehow this were
to reveal that something was wrong with a plane, that
would obviously be a huge blow to Boeing.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Right well, Ortberg, as you said, was supposed to be
this steady hand new CEO that came into the position
just last year. What has he done to address these concerns.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Well, he's done a couple of things. One is sort
of maybe these less visible sort of internal communication where
he's told people it's fine to speak up if you
see something that's not right in the company. There was
a sense at Boeing that if you pointed out things
that weren't running smoothly, you'd get penalized. So orbo came
in and said, we need to slow things down, we
(12:47):
need to get this right. I'd rather we build fewer
planes or we build them properly. We need to rebuild
the trust of the public, of the customers. There was
a sense that Boeing was too fixated on its financial
performance and not really so much as engineering performance. He's
tried to sort of regain Boeing's engineering mantra. So all
(13:09):
of these things he's done. Whether this will now get
sabotaged by this accident, it's too soon to say. A
lot of that will ride on what conclusions we can
draw from the accident.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Given this context, given the safety issues, the passenger concerns,
and the company's recent efforts, could this crash mark a
tipping point for the company.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
It might and you're seeing it to some degree in
the stock performance today, which is obviously that the shares
are hugely under pressure, and so are the shares of
General Electric, which makes the engines for this aircraft. So
if indeed it were to transpire that Boeing cut corners here,
that there was something wrong with the aircraft, there was
some sort of a failure, should we say, in the
(13:51):
design or in the way the plane was put together,
that would be a massive blow. But again we need
to be extremely careful here not to jump to any conclusions,
but this is obviously something that will be very much
on Boeing's mind. On the other hand, this is one
of two global aircraft manufacturers out there in the civil
aviation space, the other one being a bus So a
(14:12):
lot of people say, no matter what happens, Boeing's not
going to disappear. Yes, they will maybe enter another crisis,
but they will find their way out. They still make
products that people need and that people want, and there
isn't a third player out that. There are really only
two games in town. So whatever crisis they enter, it
(14:34):
might be threatening and it might be sort of all consuming,
but it's unlikely that it'll undo.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Boeing, and this speaks to this broader concern that I
think passengers all over the world have been having that
there have been more plane crashes recently. How is this
all contributing to the sense that air travel is getting
less safe? And is that feeling backed up in data
and reality.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Well, an absolute terms, air travel remains the safest mode
of transport. I mean people in the industry will tell
you it's probably less safe across the street or take
a bus than it is to border plane. Now, having
said that, if you look at an event like today,
obviously people start worrying and start wandering. It's a highly
regulated industry. Most of the aircraft out there are very
(15:22):
well maintained. There are fierce checks and balances. But at
the same time, we have had a string of accidents
since the beginning of last year. We've spoken about the
Boeing accident of that blowout, but there have been others.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
The helicopter crash in Washington Decerse, the.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Helicopter crash in exactly that one, the mid air collision,
and there have been others. The South Korean crash at
the end of last year, there was a Delta plane
that skidded off the runway and landed on its roof.
Luckily no fatalities there, But all of that has sort
of added to a sense that this is an industry
coming out of an incredibly safe phase. So this is
an industry that needs to face a new reality, which
(16:01):
is yes, it's safe, but the public are having a
lot of questions about that. You know, is it still
safe to travel? Is not just a plane but also
the people on the ground that are guiding the aircraft.
Is that entire system that we've long taken for granted,
is that still sort of trustworthy? That's a question that
we are getting a lot more these days.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Benedicte. I want to end on the human toll of
this Air India crash that we're likely to see more
clearly in the coming hours and the coming days. What
kind of support have we seen today for the people
who are most affected here, who are the victims and
their families.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
So we know that in Gatwick, for instance, which is
the app World in London, they've set up a helpline
and local support staff and obviously this is hugely tragic
for people who have lost their loved ones, and there's
very little fundamentally that you can do that. You know,
the best you can do is try and inform people
as much as you can. But this is a fast
(16:59):
moving and very chaotic situation. You have this wreckage in
the middle of a densely populated city, so this will
take time. But so far, what we've heard from the government,
from the companies, from the regulators, from local authorities, from
hospitals that everyone is rushing to this moment. I mean,
part of the reason why this industry remains so safe
(17:21):
is because conclusions are drawn from these accidents, as terrible
as they are. But you know, authorities, investigators look at
these accidents and they draw conclusions. They look at, Okay,
what can we learn from them, What can we do differently?
What kind of safety measures can we introduce that are
a direct line from this accident to future developments. And
(17:41):
that's why over time it's gotten much safer to travel byplane. Obviously,
that's no real consolation for the families of the victims
who are on this plane today.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Benedic, thank you so much for joining us and giving
us all that you know so far.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Follow the latest developments in the story on Bloomberg dot com.
This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.
To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access
to all of Bloomberg dot com, subscribe today at Bloomberg
dot com slash podcast offer. If you liked this episode,
make sure to follow and review The Big Take wherever
(18:22):
you listen to podcasts. It helps people find the show.
Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow
Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Just moments after taking
off on Thursday, an Air India flight bound for London
from an airport in western India crashed with over two
hundred passengers on board. The Boeing seven eighty seven Dreamliner
(00:21):
jet crashed into a dining hall at a medical school
while students were eating lunch. The cause is still unknown
and officials are still assessing the extent of the casualties,
though there are reports of at least one survivor. It's
the latest in a series of high profile commercial plane
crashes and safety incidents that have put passengers on edge,
(00:42):
and it's the first fatal crash to involve a Boeing
seven eighty seven Dreamliner, putting Boeing's safety record back in
the spotlight. Benedicaml at its Bloomberg's aviation coverage, and he
says the incident comes at a pivotal moment for Boeing,
whose new CEO has been trying to regain the public
trust after a series of safety incidents involving the company's planes.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
All of these things he's done. Whether this will now
get sabotaged by this accidents too soon to say A
lot of that will ride on what conclusions we can
draw from the accident.
Speaker 1 (01:18):
I'm Sarah Holder and this is the big take from
Bloomberg News today on the show What we know so
far about the Air India tragedy, What the Dreamliner crash
means for Boeing and for the commercial aviation industry. So, Benedict,
thank you so much for being here. What do we
know about the Air India crash so far?
Speaker 2 (01:41):
So this aircraft, which is a Boeing seven eight to
seven Dreamline, it's a fairly advanced plane, almost twelve years old.
This is a plane that crashed just after taking off
in India. It was bound for London Gatwick Airport, was
due to land that tonight. Had two hundred and forty
two people on board, that is and crew two very
experienced pilots, and footage that we've seen so far indicates
(02:05):
that the plane was still in takeoff mode, very low
off the ground, just sort of over a couple of
houses and then sort of started descending again. It almost
looked as if it were landing. But then the next
image you see on the footage is of a giant
plume of smoke and essentially the plane going up in
a huge ball of flames. All we know is that
(02:26):
it doesn't look like it was sort of an external
strike of some sort.
Speaker 1 (02:30):
Well, what do we know about the extent of the
casualties at this point in the day, both on the
plane and on the ground.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
The plane did crash into a very densely populated part
of the city, and so you can expect fully fueled,
fully loaded seven eight seven, which is a huge aircraft
landing or crashing into a residential area that will lead
to casualties on the ground as well. The first proper
official figure that we got from authorities was that just
(02:58):
over two hundred people and bodies have been retrieved from
the wreckage. Now, of those, we don't know how many
were on the plane, how many might have been people
on the ground, But obviously this is a huge number
and you should expect that number to rise.
Speaker 1 (03:12):
There's a lot we don't know about what actually caused
this crash. But what do we know so far based
on the data we got from the plane before it
went down.
Speaker 2 (03:23):
So we know that the plane was in takeoff mode
and it had just started its ascent, so it was
about six hundred feet in the air at that point.
It's twin engine aircraft. We don't know whether the engines
were fully functional, or whether one of the engines had failed,
or maybe even both of the engines at that point
of the departure. This is generally considered one of the
(03:44):
riskier moments of an aircraft journey. It's the takeoff and
the landing part where most things can go wrong. The
plane is fully loaded, the plane is fully fueled, it's
very heavy. The airport from where it was taking off
is known to how have a bit of a bird issue.
There are large flocks of birds in the vicinity. Now
(04:04):
this is pure speculation. We have absolutely no indication yet
that birds strike, as it's called, was a cause here,
But this is something that the authorities will be looking at.
The footage does not seem to reveal an obvious engine fault.
Sometimes in the past, when you have seen engines failing,
you see flames bursting out of the back or a
plume of smoke coming out of the engine. That's not
(04:26):
the case here. So we have what looks like a
clean takeoff. It looks like the main flaps of the
wings are not extended, so you have a clean aircraft.
The other big thing that will help is the retrieval
of what's called the black boxes. So those are the
data recorders that store the main flight parameters. Those are
(04:46):
the recorders that store the cockpit conversations, and those usually
give very good clues as to what might have happened.
One final thing to add is there was a may
day call from the cockpit shortly after takeoff. We don't
know what it said, but clearly the pilot, who we
know was very experienced, saw that something was dramatically wrong
(05:07):
and that led to the may day call. All these
things will have to get read out. Typically these types
of investigations can take days, if not months, for a
proper readout and then a final report that can really
take a long time.
Speaker 1 (05:19):
It's a horrible tragedy. When is the last time an
airplane crash of this scale happened?
Speaker 2 (05:26):
You really have to look quite far back, and more
than ten years. So there was the Malaysian Airlines aircraft
MH seventeen that was shot down over Ukraine by suspected
Russian missile that caused almost three hundred deaths, and then
Air India has not had a tragedy of this scale
all the way back to the mid nineteen eighties, and
(05:48):
that really gives you an indication of how rare these
occurrences are. We have had an increase in air accidents
in the last couple of months, and looking back into
the last year, there has in a greater number of those.
But overall, this remains a very safe mode of travel.
But people, obviously, when they see this, they think that
this is something that is on the rise. There are
(06:09):
more incidents, there are more accidents, but something of this
scale with more than two hundred dead people with a modern,
very well maintained aircraft with an experienced crew, that obviously
is an anomaly. Typically, what happens in these scenarios is
that the crash investigators take over. So you will have
the local investigators leading the charge. You will have police,
(06:32):
you will have the army, you will have a salvage mission.
First of all, all the focus and right now will
be on can we find survivors and then can we
retrieve parts of the wreckage that will help us solve
what led to this. So the NTSB, which is the
US investigating authority, they are dispatching a team there. The
(06:52):
FAA they're doing the same. Boeing will surely have a
team they will send over that. So this is very
much sort of a technical analysis this point. Erindia obviously
will have the role, should we say, with the more
humanitarian side of this, to really look after families who
are now wondering might my relative on the plane have survived,
(07:12):
and to people who have, you know, the sad assurance
that people have not survived, to look after them. But
really the focus right now is on search and rescue,
retrieval and everything else follows.
Speaker 1 (07:24):
After that, after the break Boeing's safety record and how
the Dreamliner crash could add to growing passenger anxiety about
airline safety. I'm sitting down with Bloomberg's Benedict Camel in
the wake of the Air India tragedy. Benedict, let's talk
(07:44):
about what all this means for Boeing, because it's just
the latest in a string of safety issues on Boeing planes.
One recent, much less serious issue I'm thinking of happened
last year when the door of a Boeing plane headed
from Oregon to California came off mid flight. So many
viral videos of that. Can you refresh us on Boeing's
recent safety record.
Speaker 2 (08:06):
Yes, and the safety record has obviously been problematic for Boeing.
You reference this one example, and yes there were no
fatalities in that incident, but it really sort of blew
the cover, as it were, off the safety lapses at Boeing,
at the manufacturing lapses, and it really led the public
but also authorities to rethink a sort of Boeing safety
(08:27):
standards and their manufacturing standards. So Boeing really slogged through
a very very difficult year after that. They had a
cap of the number of aircraft that they can produce.
The FAA said, you can make thirty eight seven three
sevens at a maximum per month. No more than that.
We want to make sure that you've got your sequencies
in your factory set up. We don't want you to
(08:48):
rush things. It cost Boing huge amounts of customer trust.
It cost Boing both with the public but also with
aline customers. It costs them huge amounts of money They
had to go to the market and raise and all
of this happened after two fatal crashes towards the end
of twenty eighteen one In twenty nineteen, so Boeing has
(09:09):
had a sequence of events that really, as I said,
shone the spotlight on the manufacturing, on the systems at
Boeing that were really subpar. This event here involves a
different aircraft. The ones I just reference were all about
the seven three seven as a sort of small Boeing
that most of us go on for short hops from
one city to the next. This is the seven eight
(09:31):
seven Dreamliner that's usually used on long international routes. So
this is the first time that Boeing or an airliner
has lost a seven eight seven.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Yeah, tell me more about that aircraft that was involved
in this crash, the Boeing seven eighty seven eight Dreamliner.
What is its safety record? What do we know about
that aircraft?
Speaker 2 (09:52):
Well, this aircraft's safety record has lately been really stellar.
It's a very popular aircraft for a number of reasons.
It has a good size, so popular on long routes.
More than one thousand units have been sold. It had
a shaky start when it was introduced, or even before
it was introduced in twenty eleven, because it really pushed
the envelope on a lot of the technology. But once
(10:12):
it was out it did mainly very well. It was
briefly grounded because of some issues with batteries and the
fear of that they might catch fire. But once that
issue was out of the way, this is an aircraft
that has done very well. It's really sold in very
large numbers, and it has a really good safety record
and the fact that no seven eighty seven has ever
been lost in an accent is testament to that. So
(10:35):
it's a very important aircraft for Boeing. It makes a
lot of cash for the company. The seven three seven
Max took on sort of the image of a not
so trustworthy aircraft. That's not been the case with the
seven eight seven that's still considered sort of gold standard
in its class.
Speaker 1 (10:50):
Well. A former Boeing worker, John Barnett, did raise concerns
about the Dreamliner. What were those concerns?
Speaker 2 (10:57):
He's not the only one. There have been a number
of whistleblowers that have come out and have said the
way that Boeing assembles this aircraft is subpar, that cutting corners,
and that really the plane should be reviewed, that the
FAA should take a much closer look. A lot of
this goes back to sort of the interaction between the
authorities and Boeing. There was a sense that for too
long the FAA let Boeing sort of self police itself
(11:20):
and that they could really sort of look after their
own processes at the factories and could sign off on
them in some ways. And that really came to a
halt last year with this blowout that we talked about,
and where the FA really took a very hard look
at its own role and its interaction with Boeing. Then
put a lot more people on the ground at Boeing
really slowed things down. So whether this will reverse this trend,
(11:44):
and whether you know the trust that Boeing has rebuilt
in the last couple of months, because Bowing was really coming,
as I said, out of this very difficult year and
was only now sort of gaining traction again. The production
numbers were going up, the cash was building up again.
The new CEO, Kelly Ordberg, he was seen as a
steady hand. So if somehow this accident reveals and again
(12:05):
this is pure speculation at this point, we don't know,
and it's way too soon, but if somehow this were
to reveal that something was wrong with a plane, that
would obviously be a huge blow to Boeing.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
Right well, Ortberg, as you said, was supposed to be
this steady hand new CEO that came into the position
just last year. What has he done to address these concerns.
Speaker 2 (12:26):
Well, he's done a couple of things. One is sort
of maybe these less visible sort of internal communication where
he's told people it's fine to speak up if you
see something that's not right in the company. There was
a sense at Boeing that if you pointed out things
that weren't running smoothly, you'd get penalized. So orbo came
in and said, we need to slow things down, we
(12:47):
need to get this right. I'd rather we build fewer
planes or we build them properly. We need to rebuild
the trust of the public, of the customers. There was
a sense that Boeing was too fixated on its financial
performance and not really so much as engineering performance. He's
tried to sort of regain Boeing's engineering mantra. So all
(13:09):
of these things he's done. Whether this will now get
sabotaged by this accident, it's too soon to say. A
lot of that will ride on what conclusions we can
draw from the accident.
Speaker 1 (13:20):
Given this context, given the safety issues, the passenger concerns,
and the company's recent efforts, could this crash mark a
tipping point for the company.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
It might and you're seeing it to some degree in
the stock performance today, which is obviously that the shares
are hugely under pressure, and so are the shares of
General Electric, which makes the engines for this aircraft. So
if indeed it were to transpire that Boeing cut corners here,
that there was something wrong with the aircraft, there was
some sort of a failure, should we say, in the
(13:51):
design or in the way the plane was put together,
that would be a massive blow. But again we need
to be extremely careful here not to jump to any conclusions,
but this is obviously something that will be very much
on Boeing's mind. On the other hand, this is one
of two global aircraft manufacturers out there in the civil
aviation space, the other one being a bus So a
(14:12):
lot of people say, no matter what happens, Boeing's not
going to disappear. Yes, they will maybe enter another crisis,
but they will find their way out. They still make
products that people need and that people want, and there
isn't a third player out that. There are really only
two games in town. So whatever crisis they enter, it
(14:34):
might be threatening and it might be sort of all consuming,
but it's unlikely that it'll undo.
Speaker 1 (14:39):
Boeing, and this speaks to this broader concern that I
think passengers all over the world have been having that
there have been more plane crashes recently. How is this
all contributing to the sense that air travel is getting
less safe? And is that feeling backed up in data
and reality.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Well, an absolute terms, air travel remains the safest mode
of transport. I mean people in the industry will tell
you it's probably less safe across the street or take
a bus than it is to border plane. Now, having
said that, if you look at an event like today,
obviously people start worrying and start wandering. It's a highly
regulated industry. Most of the aircraft out there are very
(15:22):
well maintained. There are fierce checks and balances. But at
the same time, we have had a string of accidents
since the beginning of last year. We've spoken about the
Boeing accident of that blowout, but there have been others.
Speaker 1 (15:35):
The helicopter crash in Washington Decerse, the.
Speaker 2 (15:37):
Helicopter crash in exactly that one, the mid air collision,
and there have been others. The South Korean crash at
the end of last year, there was a Delta plane
that skidded off the runway and landed on its roof.
Luckily no fatalities there, But all of that has sort
of added to a sense that this is an industry
coming out of an incredibly safe phase. So this is
an industry that needs to face a new reality, which
(16:01):
is yes, it's safe, but the public are having a
lot of questions about that. You know, is it still
safe to travel? Is not just a plane but also
the people on the ground that are guiding the aircraft.
Is that entire system that we've long taken for granted,
is that still sort of trustworthy? That's a question that
we are getting a lot more these days.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Benedicte. I want to end on the human toll of
this Air India crash that we're likely to see more
clearly in the coming hours and the coming days. What
kind of support have we seen today for the people
who are most affected here, who are the victims and
their families.
Speaker 2 (16:37):
So we know that in Gatwick, for instance, which is
the app World in London, they've set up a helpline
and local support staff and obviously this is hugely tragic
for people who have lost their loved ones, and there's
very little fundamentally that you can do that. You know,
the best you can do is try and inform people
as much as you can. But this is a fast
(16:59):
moving and very chaotic situation. You have this wreckage in
the middle of a densely populated city, so this will
take time. But so far, what we've heard from the government,
from the companies, from the regulators, from local authorities, from
hospitals that everyone is rushing to this moment. I mean,
part of the reason why this industry remains so safe
(17:21):
is because conclusions are drawn from these accidents, as terrible
as they are. But you know, authorities, investigators look at
these accidents and they draw conclusions. They look at, Okay,
what can we learn from them, What can we do differently?
What kind of safety measures can we introduce that are
a direct line from this accident to future developments. And
(17:41):
that's why over time it's gotten much safer to travel byplane. Obviously,
that's no real consolation for the families of the victims
who are on this plane today.
Speaker 1 (17:52):
Benedic, thank you so much for joining us and giving
us all that you know so far.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
Thanks for having me on.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Follow the latest developments in the story on Bloomberg dot com.
This is the Big Take from Bloomberg News. I'm Sarah Holder.
To get more from The Big Take and unlimited access
to all of Bloomberg dot com, subscribe today at Bloomberg
dot com slash podcast offer. If you liked this episode,
make sure to follow and review The Big Take wherever
(18:22):
you listen to podcasts. It helps people find the show.
Thanks for listening. We'll be back tomorrow
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Sarah Holder
Saleha Mohsin
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