After the release of her 2022 Netflix documentary, Downfall: The Case Against Boeing—which detailed a company culture shift at from “safety first” to corner-cutting profit-chasing, leading to the faulty 737 Max aircraft that fell out of the sky, twice—director Rory Kennedy had hope that Boeing would shift focus back to safety and quality.
“It seemed like they were doing that for a period,” Kennedy told Decider, in a recent Zoom interview. “Then the 737 Max went back in the air after it was grounded. I started seeing the headlines again.”
Headlines like wheels falling off of planes during takeoff. Hazy smoke filling cabins mid-flight. A panel flying off an Alaska Airlines jet mid-flight, exposing passengers to the open sky.
And then, Boeing whistleblower John Barnett—featured prominently in Kennedy’s Downfall doc—was found dead, in the middle of his depositions to testify in court against Boeing.
“That, more than anything, incentivized me to revisit this story,” Kennedy told Decider. “I had many hours of recordings of him that I had done over the years, and really felt like his story deserved to be told.”
And so, Kennedy and her producing partner, Mark Bailey, made a follow-up film, Freefall: A Reckoning For Boeing, which began streaming on Netflix today. (Kennedy is the youngest child of the assassinated former U.S. Senator Robert F. Kennedy, but unlike other members of her family, she has stayed away from politics and pursued a documentary filmmaking, including 2014’s ...
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