Global Airline Body Says Criminalizing Accidents Is ‘Wrong’

  • IATA’s Walsh denounces DOJ probe of Boeing in January accident
  • Investigation risks damaging culture of open reporting: Walsh
Willie Walsh Photographer: Zed Jameson/Bloomberg
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The airline industry’s top lobbyist denounced what he called the US Justice Department’s criminalization of air accidents, saying such moves risk undercutting a culture of whistleblowing and open reporting of defects.

The decision to look with “a criminal focus” at Boeing Co.’s conduct around the blowout of a door plug on a 737 Max 9 was taken too soon after the January accident, said Willie Walsh, director general of the International Air Transport Association.