Filmmaker Rory Kennedy said the March 2024 death of whistleblower John Barnett drove her to produce a sequel documentary examining Boeing’s safety record, “Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing,” which will begin streaming on Netflix in August.
“I was horrified and heartbroken,” Kennedy told the Guardian by phone. She said she spoke to Barnett’s mother after hearing the news, who told her, “We need to make sure John’s story gets out there.”
“I’ve never done a documentary follow-up in this kind of way,” Kennedy said, “but we all felt that Boeing is such a big company and we all fly these airplanes all over the world.”
Barnett, a quality inspector who worked at Boeing for 32 years, was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in his truck outside a hotel in Charleston, South Carolina. He was in the city for a deposition in a legal action alleging the company had retaliated against him after he filed a whistleblower complaint with the Department of Labor in 2017.
According to Kennedy, Barnett had witnessed Boeing’s innovative peak but saw safety compromised as the company shifted focus to the bottom line. “Over the course of his career he saw that vision deteriorate and focus much more on money,” she said. Barnett was transferred to Boeing’s non-union plant in Charleston to oversee production of the 787 Dreamliner, where Kennedy said workers with no aviation experience were hired and allegedly taught to “rubber stamp paperwork.”
The film details Barnett’s documentation of safety lapses, including the discovery that scrap parts painted red to indicate they were defective were being installed on passenger jets. Kennedy said Barnett conducted tests on the 787’s emergency oxygen systems and discovered a 25% failure rate — meaning that if a plane depressurized at 40,000 feet, one in four passengers would be left gasping for air, risking brain damage or death within minutes.
Boeing has previously expressed full confidence in the 787 Dreamliner, citing “comprehensive work” to ensure its quality and safety, and disputed what it called “inaccurate” claims regarding the jet’s structural integrity.
Kennedy’s previous documentary on the subject, “Downfall: The Case Against Boeing,” examined the 2018 and 2019 crashes of two Boeing 737 Max jets that killed 346 people. In a separate case related to those crashes, a jury in May 2026 awarded $49.5 million to the family of a victim of the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash.
“Freefall” traces Boeing’s trajectory to the 2005 arrival of chief executive Jim McNerney, a protege of General Electric’s Jack Welch. Kennedy said the film alleges the board slashed the budget for the 787 Dreamliner from an estimated $10 billion to $5 billion and outsourced massive sections of the plane to suppliers globally, creating chaos as parts did not fit together and quality control evaporated.
The film includes hidden-camera footage obtained by Al Jazeera’s investigative unit inside the South Carolina factory. According to Kennedy, workers were asked if they would take an all-expenses-paid trip anywhere in the world if they had to fly on the 787 they were building. “They all say no way, I’m not getting on this plane,” Kennedy said.
Boeing declined to cooperate for the film, as it did for the 2022 documentary. Kennedy recalled that after “Downfall” was screened to the company’s top 250 executives, a Boeing employee told her the room felt she “got everything right.” She said she remains skeptical about whether Boeing has changed. “I’ve heard them talk the talk continually but I’m not seeing any kind of structural change,” she said.