In January 2024, the pilot of an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 aircraft discovered that a door jam burst during a flight. The pilot sued Boeing, claiming that the aircraft manufacturer made him a “scapegoat” for the incident.
Captain Brendan Fisher is seeking $US10 million ($14.9 million) from Boeing for personal injury, defamation, emotional distress and other complaints over “reprehensible and inaccurate” comments the company made after the incident. Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 Incident.
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In the lawsuit filed on Dec. 30, attorneys for Fisher, who is also being sued by two passengers, said Fisher and his co-pilot, Emily Wipruder, “landed the aircraft safely despite distressing conditions in the cockpit.”
“They should have been hailed as heroes. Instead, Boeing attempted to shirk responsibility by intentionally falsely claiming that Captain Fisher and First Officer Vipruder made errors that led to the incident,” court documents read.
“Boeing's response exposed a lack of corporate integrity that has become abundantly clear in the wake of other recent, often fatal, manufacturing errors. Boeing's actions had a dramatic, life-changing impact on Captain Fisher.”
“Captain Fisher files this lawsuit to hold Boeing and its co-conspirator subcontractor Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, Inc. accountable for what they did to him and the danger their actions posed to the public. Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems must face the consequences of their lack of integrity.”
The lawsuit alleges that Boeing's “negligent and systemic failures resulted in the creation of an unsafe airplane unfit for flight” that resulted in the decompression event.
Boeing later claimed in its response to the passenger lawsuit that it should not be held liable because its products were “improperly maintained or misused by persons and/or entities other than Boeing.”
“Boeing knew this statement was false when it made it, but made it anyway as part of its often used post-accident strategy to blame pilots for incidents that were solely the result of their own actions,” the filing reads.
“It is clear that Boeing's comments were directed at Captain Fisher in an attempt to paint him as a scapegoat for Boeing's numerous failures.
“because [subsequent news] The article included a link to Boeing's response, which the world can see. Boeing believes Captain Fisher and others were responsible for the incident, despite Captain Fisher's heroic actions that resulted in a safe emergency landing.
“This allegation, while lacking any factual basis, heightened the emotional impact and pain experienced by Captain Fisher.”
The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said last year that the likely cause of the blowout was Boeing's failure to “provide adequate training, guidance and supervision” to its factory workers, and accused the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of failing to ensure Boeing addressed “repeated and systemic” nonconformities related to its parts removal process.
