Lorraine Ali: Might Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy’s new journey present be making journey much less secure?

This is a story of two documentaries.

One is a light-weight actuality sequence that follows a household’s trek throughout the United States. The different is a strong exposé on the security breaches which have triggered lethal crashes and accidents on Boeing airplanes.

The two August releases, one on Netflix and the opposite on YouTube, seem to don’t have anything in widespread. But they’re unintentionally linked by their stars and sponsors.

“Great American Road Trip” follows Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy and his household as they rejoice the nation’s 250th anniversary by trekking throughout the nation with cameras in tow. It’s Duffy’s return to reality TV after his introduction to fame within the ’90s on MTV’s “The Real World: Boston.” But there’s extra to this present than stopping in diners to eat with actual people or Duffy warning his daughter concerning the liberal risks of attending a university equivalent to Harvard: “They have professionalized how (to) take good young girls like you and corrupt their minds,” he says.

The present’s company sponsors are corporations that the Department of Transportation oversees, and Boeing is one such sponsor.

Lawmakers, together with Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., questioned Duffy throughout hearings and requested formal investigations into whether or not these company sponsors anticipated preferential entry or regulatory affect. Duffy has denied wrongdoing. Watchdog organizations just like the Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed complaints with the Department of Transportation inspector common, alleging potential violations of federal present and journey guidelines, product endorsements, and misuse of an official place.

But why ought to We the People care a few vapid actuality present when there are different urgent points screaming for our consideration, just like the mysterious origins of tariff-free floor beef or whether or not we’ll quickly be at warfare with Canada (a rustic that almost all actually does have a army)?

The reply comes within the type of Netflix’s eye-opening documentary “Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing.” The movie by Rory Kennedy (“Downfall: The Case Against Boeing”) explores the manufacturing blunders and cover-ups at Boeing that led to 346 deaths in two 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019, and a number of subsequent accidents.

The movie explores what has – or, extra importantly, hasn’t – occurred to make the corporate’s planes safer, and it’s hardly comforting. After the lethal crashes, Boeing negotiated a “deferred prosecution agreement” with the Justice Department, which meant that legal fraud fees can be dropped if the corporate prevented extra scandals and accidents for 3 years. Boeing didn’t make it previous the probationary interval when in January 2024, the rear door on an Alaska Airlines 737 Max airplane blew off midair. Miraculously, the airplane with its 171 passengers was in a position to land with no fatalities. An investigation discovered that Boeing had improperly fitted the outsourced fuselage and door plug components.

Last 12 months, Boeing and the Department of Justice reached one other nonprosecution settlement, permitting the corporate to keep away from trial by paying extra penalties and compliance investments. A month earlier than the documentary premiered on Netflix, a passenger was partially sucked by way of a damaged window on a 737-800 Boeing airplane when the cabin misplaced strain after the airplane took off from Thessaloniki, Greece.

Duffy is in command of regulating secure journey for the general public. But now that he has referred to as in favors from Boeing, in addition to different financiers of his present that embody Toyota, Shell, United Airlines, Royal Caribbean, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Lyft and the U.S. Travel Association, there’s the potential that he and our security have been compromised.

If we’re to consider what’s chronicled in “Freefall” by former Boeing workers, aviation consultants, crash investigators and the households of those that perished within the 737 Max crashes, there’s already a skinny line of accountability. The Department of Transportation shouldn’t be accepting items from the companies it’s meant to control.

Duffy’s hubris of funding his journey present by way of his authorities place would have been unthinkable beneath every other administration, Republican or Democrat. Today, nonetheless, it’s on model with the $2.5 billion that President Trump has made off his second time period in workplace, and we nonetheless have a few years to go. Bitcoin schemes, protection contracts brokered throughout the president’s household, Qatari present planes.

Duffy’s foolish actuality present, by which he praises Republican megadonor Citadel CEO Ken Griffin as a “great American patriot” within the first episode, is small peanuts as compared. Yet “Freefall” reveals us why uncompromised authorities oversight is so crucial. It’s one in all many security nets in place that ought to instill confidence after we board planes, cruise ships or just pack up the automotive for a weekend getaway.

This is a story of two documentaries that inform one huge story … if we join the dots.