An aviation expert shut down Fox & Friends’ Brian Kilmeade for appearing to suggest that India could be to blame for the Thursday morning crash of a Boeing airliner.
The network invited frequent collaborator and aviation expert Mike Boyd to offer his take on the Air India flight that crashed with 242 people on board outside the Indian city of Ahmedabad.
The 787 Dreamliner, whose safety record was impeccable until now, had just taken off en route to London Gatwick Airport when it appeared to lose power before going down in a residential area near Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport.
Kilmeade initially floated the idea that the incident might have been “intentional.” As a clip of the disaster played, the host asked Boyd: “If you can visualize in your mind, taking off, getting to 625 [feet] and then going straight down to the ground. Is that intentional? Is that one of the things that pops into your mind?”
Boyd didn’t rule it out, but added that “power failure” was more likely.
Kilmeade later quizzed Boyd on whether Boeing, Air India, or even the Indian authorities could be at fault. The expert shut him down, assuring him: “India is not sloppy.”
“787 Dreamliner, it’s Boeing plane. Now, when you buy a Boeing plane whether you are Delta, United, Air France, when does it become the responsibility, when do these different airlines put their stamp on that plane?” the host asked.
Kilmeade continued: “I’m Boeing and I sell it to you. It’s up to Air India to maintain it, number one, and maybe some different countries or airlines decide to put their own emblem, their own rules and regulations to it, correct?”
“Yeah, that’s true but they’re all approved. The Indian transportation system is a Wild West, marketing-wise. In terms of safety, that’s always been there,” Boyd told him.
The expert continued with his shutdown: “The airline’s imprint on that airplane is basically when they order the thing because they are working with Boeing on how to spec it out. Air India has been with this airplane probably since they signed the order document. From that perspective, I don’t think we have to look at maybe India being sloppy. In fact, India is not sloppy.”
Boeing, on the other hand, has been beset by issues. Last month, the U.S. company reached a deal with the Justice Department to avoid going to trial over two deadly accidents.
Just weeks before the aircraft manufacturer was set to face trial, Boeing entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the Justice Department, agreeing to pay more than $1.1 billion, including a $445 million fund for crash victims and another $445 million for compliance, safety, and quality programs.
In October 2018, a Lion Air 737 MAX flight crashed over Indonesia’s Java Sea, killing all 189 people on board. Five months later, in March 2019, an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX flight also crashed, killing all 157 people on board.
The families of victims from both crashes have long lobbied the DOJ to prosecute Boeing, and last year, the manufacturer agreed to plead guilty to criminal fraud for misleading regulators to get approval for a new in-flight control system that later played a role in both MAX crashes, despite safety concerns.
A paper by researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) divided countries into three tiers based on their safety records. India was put into the second tier.
