Global Airline Body Says Criminal Focus Of Air Accidents ‘Wrong’

(Bloomberg) -- The head of the airline industry’s global body says the criminalization of air accidents is “absolutely wrong” — a rebuke to the Department of Justice’s probe of Boeing Co.’s conduct around the mid-air Alaska Airlines door plug blowout.

Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association, said the suggestion regulators were looking at Boeing with “a criminal focus” was not right and too swift when incidents and accidents occurred.

“I think it’s completely wrong,” Walsh said in an interview with Bloomberg in Hong Kong on Tuesday, adding that such moves aren’t in the interest of safety, the traveling public or the industry at large.

The US Justice Department has convened a grand jury as part of its ongoing criminal investigation into the Jan. 5 mid-air accident involving a near-new Boeing Co. 737-9 Max aircraft operated by Alaska Airlines.

“I think it risks pushing people back into a period when we didn’t have as open a culture in terms of reporting,” the IATA head said. “To me, it’s a retrograde step, something that we have to push back and push back strongly against.”

Walsh argued that the criminalization of wrongdoing in the industry would be self-defeating, particularly to the culture of whistleblowing and open reporting.

A former Boeing worker who raised concerns about the US planemaker’s production standards at its North Charleston 787 Dreamliner factory has been found dead, the BBC reported earlier Tuesday.

Read More: US Opens Criminal Investigation Into Alaska’s Midair Blowout

Bloomberg reported previously that the Department of Justice was looking into whether the door plug blowout falls under the US government’s 2021 deferred prosecution agreement with Boeing over two previous fatal crashes of its 737 Max jetliner. 

It couldn’t be immediately determined whether the criminal investigation is part of that review or has now become a standalone effort.

Walsh also praised the ownership Boeing took after the accident.

“It’s very important for us as an industry that people recognize when they’ve made mistakes, admit them, and then try and figure out how did it happen and everybody benefits from it,” he said.

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