'Fraud and profits over safety': Family who lost daughter in Boeing crash urge others to avoid company
Michael Stumo and Nadia Milleron discuss concerns over manufacturing defects in Boeing planes after losing a family member in a crash approximately five years ago.
Boeing's latest incident involving an Alaska Airlines door plug has put the company's credibility in question following a string of tragic accidents involving 737 Max planes.
The parents of 24-year-old Samya Stumo, who was killed in 2019's Ethiopian Airlines crash, are speaking out against the aircraft company and urging others to "choose not to get on these planes."
"They're like the Ford Pinto of the skies. And we're just glad that nobody was killed in this blowout incident. They were frightened. They were hurt, but they weren't killed," Michael Stumo said on "Fox & Friends First" Thursday.
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"Now they can't blame the pilots for a plug door blowout. But they have to face that they have flight management computers going dark. They've got stabilizer trim motors that are bad, that they don't know how to manufacture good planes. They know how, but they're just stripping the company for profit and hurting people."
Samya was one of 157 people killed in March 2019 on board a Boeing 737 Max plane that crashed shortly after takeoff in Ethiopia. The disaster occurred less than five months after a Lion Air flight, also a 737 Max, crashed after takeoff in Indonesia, killing 189 people.
Nadia Milleron said their goal as grieving parents is to "save people" from another tragedy.
"You can choose not to get on these planes since they're not grounded. These planes should be grounded right now by the FAA. We should keep our people safe. Since they are not keeping you safe, you need to not get on the planes. You need to make a choice for yourself."
The latest Boeing incident on Jan. 5 saw a door plug panel, which covers an extra emergency exit that is only operable on planes with the maximum capacity, blow off an Alaska Airlines flight that was at 16,000 feet and climbing to cruising altitude after takeoff in Portland, Oregon. The loss of the panel caused the depressurization of the cabin, and the plane returned safely to Portland with no serious injuries reported.
"When I saw what happened, I was not surprised because there have been so many public pilot reports that detail all of these problems," Milleron said. "There have been over 20 serious quality defects on Max planes. So they're talking about the Max 9, but this includes the Max 8, which is still flying."
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Government agencies have since worked to investigate potential hazards that could affect flights from Alaska Airlines and United Airlines, the two U.S. air carriers that use the 737 Max 9, and ordered the aircraft to be grounded for an investigation led by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and National Transportation Safety Board. The carriers resumed flying some of their Max 9 planes last weekend.
Since the incident, shareholders have also filed a lawsuit against Boeing, claiming the company prioritized profits over safety.
"Boeing is accountable for what happened," CEO Dave Calhoun said Wednesday. "Whatever the specific cause of the accident might turn out to be, an event like this simply must not happen on an airplane that leaves one of our factories. We simply must be better. Our customers deserve better."
Stumo argued, however, that Boeing has not been held accountable for tragedies, starting with 2018's Lion Air crash.
"That first crash shouldn't have happened," he said. "It was a design flaw and manufacturing flaw in the aircraft. David Calhoun lied about safety of the plane then. Then the crash in Ethiopia happened in March 2019, and they still lied about how safe the aircraft was. The Securities Exchange Commission found they lied. The Department of Justice said they lied. They said it was safe, and they checked it out as safe. A judge in Delaware found they lied. And now we know that they have had many manufacturing defects in these infamous Boeing Max aircraft."
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When asked if Boeing's rush to put out planes was responsible for Samya's death, Stumo replied "it absolutely is."
"Boeing [put] fraud and profits over safety," he concluded.