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shelbgrey · 8 months ago

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Ok but imagine this:

The allison and mark situation happens, so when derek finds out he tells reader (who is marks gf at the time) and they go to seattle amd fall in love and when allison and mark go there they see them being all in love.

This just spoke to me

Every rose has its thorn

Paring: Derek shepherd x Reader, Ex!Mark Sloan x Reader.

Summary: after Addison cheats on Derek and Mark cheats on the reader, both Derek and her go to Seattle. After they both got drunk and had sex one night the two relized the feeling they have for each other, by the time Mark and Addison come to Seattle Derek and the reader are dating and in love.

MasterList ML2

It sucks when your whole life gets turned upside down. A group of friends being torn apart because of an adulterous act. Derek had come home one night to see his wife Addison Montgomery in bed with his best friend Mark Sloan... Mark Sloan just happened to be the boyfriend of y/n L/n. Both Addison and Mark cheated on Derek and y/n. Ruining their relationships forever.

Y/n felt terrible, her heart ached. She felt like she should have seen it coming, she thought she should have seen the signals. She was mad and heartbroken when I found out Mark cheated on her with Addison. Most of all, she was angry at Addison for cheating on Derek. Derek was y/n’s best friend and seeing him that heartbroken hurt worse.

Derek hated both Addison and Mark. Not only did they ruin his relationship and marriage, but they also hurt y/n as well. Derek was so upset that he decided to leave town. He was tired of the lies from Addison and Mark. He just wanted to move on. He knew he couldn't if he stayed there. That's when he and y/n made the move to Seattle together.

~~~~~~~~(.......)~~~~~~~~

They both got drunk the first night they were in Seattle. Derek and her went to this small bar that was across the street from the hospital. Y/n never got drunk, she didn't like drinking but that's just how the night went. And too bad it took them being drunk to realize there was something between them.

Once they got drunk Derek started noticing things about her he had never noticed before. He started to see her in a new light. It made him see how beautiful she was. His feelings for her grew the more drunk they got.

“God I hate him” y/n rambled about Mark. “I wish I never fell in love with him”

Derek listened to everything y/n had to say. He hated that she loved a man like Mark. She deserved so much better. Derek couldn't wait to show her how much better he was for her…

“I hate her too” y/n sighed then looked over at Derek, there was just something there she hadn't noticed before. They always had some kinda connection, but always played it off as being best friend

She noticed his smile, his blue eyes. She always considered him a platonic soulmate, but maybe... Just maybe there was something more. Derek looked over at y/n. Her lips looked so soft. Her hair was perfectly curled. She stood out like a diamond, She was beautiful. Derek had never thought he would feel this way towards her. But as the night went on he realized there was something inside of him that was growing for her. He realized that he was falling in love with her. He had never felt this way before for anyone.

They both sat there wondering what would have happened if they chose each other instead of Mark and Addison. Derek always wondered what it would be like if y/n chose him over Mark. If y/n had chosen him, Addison would never have broken his heart. Would they have settled down with each other and had children? Had a family? The thoughts were racing through Derek's mind while he continued to stare at y/n. He wanted to make his move.

“Why are you looking at me like That?” she chuckled drunkenly.

Derek didn't realize that his lustful gaze was showing. He felt his cheeks burn red from embarrassment. He cleared his throat. “because your beautiful”

She blushed and looked away. “your just saying that”

Derek wanted her to know she was beautiful and he wasn't just saying that. He moved closer to her. “no. I mean it. You're so beautiful. I've never told you that before. But I'm gonna tell you now. You're gorgeous…”

She don't know what possessed her, but she placed her hand on his jaw and pressed her lips to his. Derek was absolutely shocked when y/n pressed her lips to his, that she had initiated it first. He pulled away, staring into her eyes. “Mark is stupid for letting something as amazing as you go” Derek whispered, he had been wanting this for so long. Derek immediately placed his hands on her hips and pulled her close to him. He kissed her with all the emotion and longing that had built up inside of him. He wanted her and he was going to get her.

Her lips parted and gently brushed her tongue against his lips, running her fingers through his hair

He kept kissing her deeply as he ran his hands up her torso, towards her neck. Derek couldn't wait to explore every inch of her.

Y/n slowly pulled away, resting her forehead against his as she tried to catch her breath and tried to focus my drunken mind. Now all logic was throwing away, she inched her face closer to his again, nudging her nose against his, hovering her lips over his. She couldn't get enough of the intoxicating scent of his cologne. Her eyes were fixed downward,watching his hands roam the outline of her body.

Derek's hands wrapped around her waist as he pulled her closer to him. They were both losing reason and logic. They were caught up in the moment. Derek felt their warmth building between them and it was turning him on, He wanted more. His hands wandered up her back now and they slowly ran through her hair. The smell of lavender wafted up to his nose and he was lost in her.

Before things could get too far, y/n pressed her hands to his chest, stopping him. “you wanna get out of here?”

Derek quickly nodded. “yeah, let's get out of here”

~~~~~~~~(.......)~~~~~~~~

As soon as they got back to the trailer, her lips were back on his, the kiss was messy and rushed. Y/n quickly pushed his jacket off his shoulders as he pushed her backwards towards the kitchen counter. She moaned against his lips, running her fingers through his hair. Getting them lost in his soft, perfect hair.

Derek was absolutely stunned by her boldness. This was the moment he had been longing for all this time. He was ecstatic that she was finally showing him this side of her. He threw his coat to the side with the rest of their stuff and began to kiss her with more passion. His hands roamed from her back down her body, giving her ass a squeeze. He was feeling her up the way he had wanted to since the moment he met her.

He couldn't help but want more. His hands squeezed her butt and his lips kept on exploring hers while he moved her back towards the bed. His body was pushed against hers and he leaned her back. There was no going back now. Y/n fell backwards on his bed, pulling him down with her. She moaned softly, tugging on his hair as his lips and the scruff on his jaw brushed against her neck.

Derek loved her reaction, the moans she let out were sending shivers down his spine. Her touch felt so good on him. Derek could feel her body pressing against his. He was enjoying her just as much as she was enjoying him. He wanted to kiss every inch of her. He finally had the chance to make her his and he wasn't going to let her slip away from him.

“D-derek” she moaned softly.

Derek loved how his name coming from her mouth sounded. Hearing her breathless voice gave him everything he needed to continue on with her. His hands ran up and down her body and his lips traveled across her neck and down to her shoulders. His mouth was finally exploring her body in ways that he had wished he could do for so long. His scruff was rough on her soft skin. His lips were gentle and tender. His touch was so hot and passionate. He loved the way she tasted and smelled, every inch of her was perfect to him.

They were running on nothing but alcohol, bottled up feelings, and passion. Their clothes were gone in seconds and they fell into each other's temptations.

--------(1st pov)--------

The next morning I woke up with a hangover, my head was pounding. I looked around and noticed I was in Derek's bed and not my own. I peaked under the covers and we were both naked. Derek was still asleep, I slowly sat up and grabbed his red shirt from last night and covered my bare chest with it. I sat there processing the whole night, I didn't feel regret or anything, but when something feels so good, how can it not be bad. “Derek, wake up” I said, nudging his naked shoulder.

Derek's eyes slowly opened and he sat up from the bed, stretching and yawning. He turned his head in my direction and he froze when he noticed his shirt covering my chest. His eyes grew wide, but there was a smirk on his face.

“So... Umm…” I looked down shyly. “we umm... Last night, didn't we?” I asked softly.

Derek laid on his back, smirking to himself. “yeah… Yeah we did”

I moved my messy hair out of my face. “we're no better than them,” I mumbled, thinking about Addison and Mark. They slept together, they were in the wrong, but what about us?.

Even if I was right or wrong, I couldn't help but feel a sense of relief from last night. The bond we formed last night was undeniable. I had wanted him for so long and we finally had our chance. Mark and Addison may have won the battle, but there was this feeling that we were gonna win the war.

I fell backwards in the bed, laying on my back next to him. I rubbed my face processing everything. I didn't regret it one bit, but I wished it happened at a different time. “God... I just had sex with a married man” I mumbled, covering my face.

He rolled over on his side, facing me. He kissed my shoulder with a smirk on his face. “Separated... I'm not with Addison anymore” he kissed my cheek then looked at me with those pretty blue eyes. “and I gotta say... That was the best sex I ever had…”

I uncovered my face and turned my head towards him, smiling. “Dito”

Derek smiled. “Do you... umm... regret what we did last night?”

“No... Do you?” I asked softly.

Derek shook his head in a no. “I wanted to do that for so long.” he leaned forward and brushed his lips against mine for a soft loving kiss.

Derek pulled me close, kissing me deeply with no regrets between us. My heart fluttered as he kissed me passionately. This feeling was so new to me, but definitely wanted. His hands grabbed my hips and pulled me against his chest. The scruff on his jaw hitting my chin and cheeks. I smirked against his lips and placed my hand on his jaw, feeling the scruff that peppered his jaw. I pulled away from the kiss and rested my forehead against his, I rubbed my thumb over his cheek gently. “like this...” I mumbled, referring to his scruff. When he was with Addison he was always clean shaved. She liked it that way, I didn't matter if he wanted to let it grow.

“You like it?” his eyebrow raised with a smirk on his face.

“Yeah... It's sexy”

When he was with Addison he definitely shaved daily. But he was trying keep his scruff now. He liked the way he looked with a little bit of scruff now. He kissed my cheek slowly. “I'll keep it for you then” he smirked again.

I smiled, pulling him down for another kiss and slowly ran my fingers through his hair. I pulled away from the kiss gently. “we need to get ready for work...”

“yeah... First day” Derek chuckled and kissed my nose before climed out of bed.

~~~~~~~~(few months later)~~~~~~~~

I had to admit Seattle was just a better place to be than new York. No one knew us except Richard Webber, he still didn't know about our relationship and that was okay. As the months went by it was made clear that our firsr night here ment everything. We just fit too well together, even if that sounded cheesy. Being beat friends in the past nothing much changed except we were now kissing, cuddling, and having quickies in the shower.

Mark had tried to call me numerous of times, I hadn't awnsered once. I wasn't ready to talk to him, but I think I was ready to forgive him. I had moved on and was happy with Derek, so there was no reason to hate him. Addison is a different story. I couldn't believe it when she showed up in Seattle.

“Addison... what are you doing here?” Derek asked.

I couldn’t even looked Addison in the eyes. I kept my head down and my anger bottled up.

“you would have know if you had botherd to return any one of my phone calls” Addison turned to me. “or awnsered the phone when Mark calls”

“I have nothing to say to him” I said bitterly.

“of course not, your too busy screwing my husband” Addison shot back.

“that's rich” I snapped back. “you were too busy screwing my boyfriend”

Derek grabed my arm, rubbing it affectionately. He stared at Addison with betrayal and anger. “is there something you need? What are you doing here?”

Addison had a smug look on her face as she looked Derek up and down. I couldn't help but feel territorial, but at the same time insucre. I always thought Addison was prettier than me.

“your hair is different” Addison said, dodging the subject. She went to reach for his hair, but I pushed her hand away. Derek smirked slightly, but it disappeared and he turned back to Addison. “a lot of things are different”

“it's longer” Addison continued. “what's your problem?” I asked annoyed.

“what are you doing here?” Derek asked again.

“Relax, guys, I'm here for work. I'm helming the T.T.T.S. case you guys admitted last week. And after Richard's briefing...” Addison said, rolling her eyes.

“bullshit” I said. I didn't believe a word that came out of this woman's mouth. “I swear to God, if you brought Mark with you...”

“it's cute...” Addison started sarcastically. “That whole wide-eyed "ooh, he's a brain surgeon" act you have going on... It's sweet. Which is what you were going for, right? The anti-Addison”

I shook my head, staring daggers into her. She smirked like she had the upper hand now. I didn't know it was possible to love and hate someone so much. Addison was always like an older sister to me, I looked up to her and wanted to be like her. Not now she betrayed me... But in a sences I betrayed her too.

“let's go” Derek said in a hard tone and grabed my hand. I looked into Addison's eyes and showed her nothing but hurt as Derek pulled me away.

~~~~~~~~(.......)~~~~~~~~

“why is she back!?” I yelled at Derek.

“I don't know! Why are you yelling at me?” Derek snapped back as he paced back and forth in his trailer. I don't know why we were taking this out on each other, it hurt we resorted to this.

“I don't know!” I sighed and sat down on his bed, rubbing my face in frustration. I think we weren't yelling at each other, just yelling in general. We were both frustrated.

Derek sighed and gave me a gental expression. “you know her coming here means nothing, right?”

I looked up at him, I trusted him but I just had to ask. “nothing between us changes?”

His blue eyes stared into my soul. I loved his eyes, I could just drown in them. “nothing changes... Hell, I'll devorce her”

He held his hand out to me and I took it. “I promise” he said softly and knelt infront me where I was setting so we were eye level. “we're not gonna lose each other... Not again”

~~~~~~~~(.......)~~~~~~~~

Then Mark came back...

Unlike when Addison showed up, I was just hurt to see him. I hadn't thought about him since me and derek started dating, but when I saw his face all that hurt and betrayal came rushing back.

The first time he visited Seattle he was on the ground and thanks to Derek I was the one that had to stich him him up. Richard sent me and Mark to the ER and Richard was chewing Derek out for the punch. That's when Richard found out about Addison and Mark's affair.

“you look amazing” Mark said as I got out the supplies to stich up his cheek. I ignored him as I tried to keep my anger and disappointment bottled up.

I cleared my throat and placed a towel on his shoulder and tried to get a decent angle to stich his cheek.

“here” Mark mumbled and to my dismay he pulled me in between by my hips so I could be closer. “thats better” he smirked.

I sighed and dropped the tweezers. “you think your funny?”

“I think I'm adorable” he smirked. I rolled my eyes and stiched up the gash. I sighed using the technique mark taught me long ago.

“I missed you... I really do” he said as I placed a bandaged on. I tried to stay silent but Mark wasn't having it. “will you please say something?”

I slammed the tweezers on the tray with a loud clink then turned towrds Mark. “What do you want me to say? I don't want you here and and sure as hell don't want Addison here”

Mark looked down staying silent. “I'm sorry”

I rolled my eyes tired of his sorrys. I did miss him and hell I unfortunately still cared for him, but every time I looked at him all I can think of is him in bed with Addison.

I gulped and looked at him as I felt the tears form. “I'll see ya around Mark”

“bye...” he said barly above a whisper.

--------(3rd pov)--------

Mark and Addison from a far, confused on what they were seeing. They just couldn't understand how fast y/n and derek fell for each other. Addison scolded herself for not seeing the signs earlier, but when she looks back she could see the way Derek looked at y/n.

“Derek never looked at me the way he looks at here” Addison said in a monotone voice.

Mark crossed his arms, staring at the new couple. He feeling so many different things it confused him. He wanted to fix his friendship with Derek, but everytime he saw his arm around y/n he just wanted to break it. Then on the other hand his heart broke seeing y/n smile and derek and not him, but he loved her enough to feel some sorta relief he didn't totally break her and she was happy.

“y/n looked at me like that... Every day we we're together” Mark said. “and I screwed it up big time”

Addison glanced at him, part of her felt fear Mark regreted being with her. It ment she lost two men she loved. She felt selfish for feeling like that, not only did she lose a husband she lost her closest female friend. This whole situation was a mess and she knew it.

Mark glanced at her, his blue eyes showing nothing but pain. “if I could turn back time I would in a heart beat”

Mark still loved her, but he loved her enough to let her go. At least he knew he could trust Derek not to hurt her. “let go of your pride addie, if you think Derek will leave n/n your crazy”

Addison raised an eyebrow at him, like she thought he was some kinda hypocrite. “well, y/n isn't leaving Derek for you”

“yeah... And I just need to learn to deal with that” Mark sighed, giving y/n and derek one last glance before leaving.

#Deek shepherd x Reader #Mark Sloan x Reader #Greys anatomy x reader #Greys anatomy imagines #Derek shepherd imagines #Patrick Dempsey #Eric Dane #Addison Montgomery x reader

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mostlysignssomeportents · 8 months ago

Text

Boeing’s deliberately defective fleet of flying sky-wreckage

I'm touring my new, nationally bestselling novel The Bezzle! Catch me TOMORROW (May 2) in WINNIPEG, then Calgary (May 3), Vancouver (May 4), Tartu, Estonia, and beyond!

Boeing's 787 "Dreamliner" is manufactured far from the company's Seattle facility, in a non-union shop in Charleston, South Carolina. At that shop, there is a cage full of defective parts that have been pulled from production because they are not airworthy.

Hundreds of parts from that Material Review Segregation Area (MRSA) were secretly pulled from that cage and installed on aircraft that are currently plying the world's skies. Among them, sections 47/48 of a 787 – the last four rows of the plane, along with its galley and rear toilets. As Moe Tkacik writes in her excellent piece on Boeing's lethally corrupt culture of financialization and whistleblower intimidation, this is a big ass chunk of an airplane, and there's no way it could go missing from the MRSA cage without a lot of people knowing about it:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-04-30-whistleblower-laws-protect-lawbreakers/

More: MRSA parts are prominently emblazoned with red marks denoting them as defective and unsafe. For a plane to escape Boeing's production line and find its way to a civilian airport near you with these defective parts installed, many people will have to see and ignore this literal red flag.

The MRSA cage was a special concern of John "Swampy" Barnett, the Boeing whistleblower who is alleged to have killed himself in March. Tkacik's earlier profile of Swampy paints a picture of a fearless, stubborn engineer who refused to go along to get along, refused to allow himself to become inured to Boeing's growing culture of profits over safety:

https://prospect.org/infrastructure/transportation/2024-03-28-suicide-mission-boeing/

Boeing is America's last aviation company and its single largest exporter. After the company was allowed to merge with its rival McDonnell-Douglas in 1997, the combined company came under MDD's notoriously financially oriented management culture. MDD CEO Harry Stonecipher became Boeing's CEO in the early 2000s. Stonecipher was a protege of Jack Welch, the man who destroyed General Electric with cuts to quality and workforce and aggressive union-busting, a classic Mafia-style "bust-out" that devoured the company's seed corn and left it a barren wasteland:

https://qz.com/1776080/how-the-mcdonnell-douglas-boeing-merger-led-to-the-737-max-crisis

Post-merger, Boeing became increasingly infected with MDD's culture. The company chased cheap, less-skilled labor to other countries and to America's great onshore-offshore sacrifice zone, the "right-to-work" American south, where bosses can fire uppity workers who balked at criminal orders, without the hassle of a union grievance.

Stonecipher was succeeded by Jim "Prince Jim" McNerney, ex-3M CEO, another Jack Welch protege (Welch spawned a botnet of sociopath looters who seized control of the country's largest, most successful firms, and drove them into the ground). McNerney had a cute name for the company's senior engineers: "phenomenally talented assholes." He created a program to help his managers force these skilled workers – everyone a Boeing who knew how to build a plane – out of the company.

McNerney's big idea was to get rid of "phenomenally talented assholes" and outsource the Dreamliner's design to Boeing's suppliers, who were utterly dependent on the company and could easily be pushed around (McNerney didn't care that most of these companies lacked engineering departments). This resulted in a $80b cost overrun, and a last-minute scramble to save the 787 by shipping a "cleanup crew" from Seattle to South Carolina, in the hopes that those "phenomenally talented assholes" could save McNerney's ass.

Swampy was part of the cleanup crew. He was terrified by what he saw there. Boeing had convinced the FAA to let them company perform its own inspections, replacing independent government inspectors with Boeing employees. The company would mark its own homework, and it swore that it wouldn't cheat.

Boeing cheated. Swampy dutifully reported the legion of safety violations he witnessed and was banished to babysit the MRSA, an assignment his managers viewed as a punishment that would isolate Swampy from the criminality he refused to stop reporting. Instead, Swampy audited the MRSA, and discovered that at least 420 defective aviation components had gone missing from the cage, presumably to be installed in planes that were behind schedule. Swampy then audited the keys to the MRSA and learned that hundreds of keys were "floating around" the Charleston facility. Virtually anyone could liberate a defective part and install it into an airplane without any paper trail.

Swampy's bosses had a plan for dealing with this. They ordered Swampy to "pencil whip" the investigations of 420 missing defective components and close the cases without actually figuring out what happened to them. Swampy refused.

Instead, Swampy took his concerns to a departmental meeting where 12 managers were present and announced that "if we can’t find them, any that we can’t find, we need to report it to the FAA." The only response came from a supervisor, who said, "We’re not going to report anything to the FAA."

The thing is, Swampy wasn't just protecting the lives of the passengers in those defective aircraft – he was also protecting Boeing employees. Under Sec 38 of the US Criminal Code, it's a 15-year felony to make any "materially false writing, entry, certification, document, record, data plate, label, or electronic communication concerning any aircraft or space vehicle part."

(When Swampy told a meeting that he took this seriously because "the paperwork is just as important as the aircraft" the room erupted in laughter.)

Swampy sent his own inspectors to the factory floor, and they discovered "dozens of red-painted defective parts installed on planes."

Swampy blew the whistle. How did the 787 – and the rest of Boeing's defective flying turkeys – escape the hangar and find their way into commercial airlines' fleets? Tkacik blames a 2000 whistleblower law called AIR21 that:

creates such byzantine procedures, locates adjudication power in such an outgunned federal agency, and gives whistleblowers such a narrow chance of success that it effectively immunizes airplane manufacturers, of which there is one in the United States, from suffering any legal repercussions from the testimony of their own workers.

By his own estimation, Swampy was ordered to commit two felonies per week for six years. Tkacik explains that this kind of operation relies on a culture of ignorance – managers must not document their orders, and workers must not be made aware of the law. Whistleblowers like Swampy, who spoke the unspeakable, were sidelined (an assessment by one of Swampy's managers called him "one of the best" and finished that "leadership would give hugs and high fives all around at his departure").

Multiple whistleblowers were singled out for retaliation and forced departure. William Hobek, a quality manager who refused to "pencil whip" the missing, massive 47-48 assembly that had wandered away from the MRSA cage, was given a "weak" performance review and fired despite an HR manager admitting that it was bogus.

Another quality manager, Cynthia Kitchens, filed an ethics complaint against manager Elton Wright who responded to her persistent reporting of defects on the line by shoving her against a wall and shouting that Boeing was "a good ol’ boys’ club and you need to get on board." Kitchens was fired in 2016. She had cancer at the time.

John Woods, yet another quality engineer, was fired after he refused to sign off on a corner-cutting process to repair a fuselage – the FAA later backed up his judgment.

Then there's Sam Salehpour, the 787 quality engineer whose tearful Congressional testimony described more corner-cutting on fuselage repairs:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP0xhIe1LFE

Salehpour's boss followed the Boeing playbook to the letter: Salehpour was constantly harangued and bullied, and he was isolated from colleagues who might concur with his assessment. When Salehpour announced that he would give Congressional testimony, his car was sabotaged under mysterious circumstances.

It's a playbook. Salehpour's experience isn't unusual at Boeing. Two other engineers, working on the 787 Organization Designation Authorization, held up production by insisting that the company fix the planes' onboard navigation computers. Their boss gave them a terrible performance review, admitting that top management was furious at the delays and had ordered him to punish the engineers. The engineers' union grievance failed, with Boeing concluding that this conduct – which they admitted to – didn't rise to the level of retaliation.

As Tkacik points out, these engineers and managers that Boeing targeted for intimidation and retaliation are the very same staff who are supposed to be performing inspections of behalf of the FAA. In other words, Boeing has spent years attacking its own regulator, with total impunity.

But it's not just the FAA who've failed to take action – it's also the DOJ, who have consistently declined to bring prosecutions in most cases, and who settled the rare case they did bring with "deferred prosecution agreements." This pattern was true under Trump's DOJ and continued under Biden's tenure. Biden's prosecutors have been so lackluster that a federal judge "publicly rebuked the DOJ for failing to take seriously the reputational damage its conduct throughout the Boeing case was inflicting on the agency."

Meanwhile, there's the AIR21 rule, a "whistleblower" rule that actually protects Boeing from whistleblowers. Under AIR21, an aviation whistleblower who is retaliated against by their employer must first try to resolve their problem internally. If that fails, the whistleblower has only one course of action: file an OSHA complaint within 90 days (if HR takes more than 90 days to resolve your internal complaint, you can no have no further recourse). If you manage to raise a complaint with OSHA, it is heard by a secret tribunal that has no subpoena power and routinely takes five years to rule on cases, and rules against whistleblowers 97% of the time.

Boeing whistleblowers who missed the 90-day cutoff have filled the South Carolina courts with last-ditch attempts to hold the company to account. When they lose these cases – as is routine, given Boeing's enormous legal muscle and AIR21's legal handcuffs – they are often ordered to pay Boeing's legal costs.

Tkacik cites Swampy's lawyer, Rob Turkewitz, who says Swampy was the only one of Boeing's whistleblowers who was "savvy, meticulous, and fast-moving enough to bring an AIR 21 case capable of jumping through all the hoops" to file an AIR21 case, which then took seven years. Turkewitz calls Boeing South Carolina "a criminal enterprise."

That's a conclusion that's hard to argue with. Take Boeing's excuse for not producing the documentation of its slapdash reinstallation of the Alaska Air door plug that fell off its plane in flight: the company says it's not criminally liable for failing to provide the paperwork, because it never documented the repair. Not documenting the repair is also a crime.

You might have heard that there's some accountability coming to the Boeing boardroom, with the ouster of CEO David Calhoun. Calhoun's likely successor is Patrick Shanahan, whom Tkacik describes as "the architect of the ethos that governed the 787 program" and whom her source called "a classic schoolyard bully."

If Shanahan's name rings a bell, it might be because he was almost Trump's Secretary of Defense, but that was derailed by the news that he had "emphatically defended" his 17 year old son after the boy nearly beat his mother to death with a baseball bat. Shanahan is presently CEO of Spirit Aerospace, who made the door-plug that fell out of the Alaska Airlines 737 Max.

Boeing is a company where senior managers only fail up and where whistleblowers are terrorized in and out of the workplace. One of Tkacik's sources noticed his car shimmying. The source, an ex-787 worker who'd been fired after raising safety complaints, had tried to bring an AIR21 complaint, but withdrew it out of fear of being bankrupted if he was ordered to pay Boeing's legal costs. When the whistleblower pulled over, he discovered that two of the lug-nuts had been removed from one of his wheels.

The whistleblower texted Tkcacik to say (not for the first time): "If anything happens, I'm not suicidal."

Boeing is a primary aerospace contractor to the US government. It's clear that its management – and investors – consider it too big to jail. It's also clear that they know it's too big to fail – after all, the company did a $43b stock buyback, then got billions in a publicly funded buyback.

Boeing is, effectively, a government agency that is run for the benefit of its investors. It performs its own safety inspections. It investigates its own criminal violations of safety rules. It loots its own coffers and then refills them at public expense.

Meanwhile, the company has filled our skies with at least 420 airplanes with defective, red-painted parts that were locked up in the MRSA cage, then snuck out and fitted to an airplane that you or someone you love could fly on the next time you take your family on vacation or fly somewhere for work.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/05/01/boeing-boeing/#mrsa

Image: Tom Axford 1 (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Blue_sky_with_wisps_of_cloud_on_a_clear_summer_morning.jpg

CC BY-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en

Clemens Vasters (modified) https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:N7379E_-_Boeing_737_MAX_9.jpg

CC BY 2.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

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