According to the Daily Mail, Boeing whistleblower Joe Jacobsen has made alarming claims about the recent Air India flight 171 crash investigation, suggesting that investigators likely already know what caused the disaster but won't release findings for months, potentially putting more lives at risk.
While both the cockpit voice recorder and flight data recorder were recovered by Sunday, Jacobsen claims that information from these devices can be analyzed within days, yet official conclusions might not be released for a year.
The crash, which occurred on June 12 in Ahmedabad, India, killed 241 of the 242 passengers aboard the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, as well as eight people on the ground.
Jacobsen, who worked for both Boeing and the FAA for decades, has suggested there are financial motivations behind delaying the release of potentially damaging findings about the 787 Dreamliner.
"A lot of people are invested in Boeing and so they try and delay this stuff so people forget about it, or at least they can make their changes before the bottom falls out," Jacobsen told the Daily Mail. Boeing's stock fell 4.8% after the crash, closing at $203.75 on June 12, and continued declining to around $198.35 a week later.
Investment firms like RBC Capital Markets have cautioned investors against hasty sell-offs, noting in an investors' note that "it can often take months to fully understand the causes of a crash." But Jacobsen claims this extended timeline is more about controlling the narrative than conducting thorough investigation.
Jacobsen's concerns aren't merely speculative—he points to the 2018 Lion Air crash as evidence of how delays in releasing findings can lead to additional tragedies.
After the Lion Air Flight 610 crash in October 2018 that killed 189 people, Jacobsen claims he identified the problem within minutes of reviewing flight data. Yet the full report wasn't released for a year, during which time Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed in March 2019, killing all 157 people aboard. Both crashes involved Boeing 737 MAX aircraft and were eventually linked to the same flawed flight control system.
"I got the flight data recorder data a week after the crash, and it took five minutes to see what the problem was," Jacobsen recalled. Boeing recently reached a $1.1 billion settlement with the U.S. Justice Department over those two crashes.
Another Boeing whistleblower, Sam Salehpour, has also expressed frustration with the slow pace of investigations into Boeing aircraft safety issues.
Salehpour went public last year with allegations that Boeing was using "shortcuts" in manufacturing the 787 Dreamliner fuselage. His lawyer, Debra Katz, recently complained that the FAA has been sitting on a completed investigation for months. "The FAA previously represented to us that they had completed an investigation, suggested that it had meaningful and significant findings that supported Mr. Salehpour's allegations, and it was going to release them imminently," Katz said.
Meanwhile, another Air India pilot turned a 787 Dreamliner around 30 minutes into flight on Monday, citing an unspecified technical issue. The airline described this as a precautionary measure, but it raises questions about potential widespread issues with the aircraft model.
For Jacobsen, the solution to prevent future tragedies is straightforward: release findings promptly or ground affected aircraft until the cause of the crashes has been publicly identified.
"They know 95 percent of what happened after a week - but then the next 11 months are used up by people trying to control the message, and point fingers at one another, who's responsible, who's not responsible," Jacobsen explained. This finger-pointing between airlines and manufacturers unnecessarily delays vital safety information.
Boeing has not responded to requests for comment on Jacobsen's allegations. The company's President and CEO, Kelly Ortberg, issued a statement following the crash, offering "full support" to the investigation led by India's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau.
