Unnamed Industry Officials tell Wall Street Journal the least powerful person they can think of may have caused LATAM Airlines Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner to Dive on flight to New Zealand.
Any thoughts you may have had that this is connected to lax safety procedures encouraged to keep stock prices high and cost low can be put to rest. Plane is safe. Fix is easy.
It would be wrong to compare this to the explosion on the 1989 USS Iowa that killed 47 and was initially blamed on an a dead enlisted sailor. Per Navy report:
According to the leaks (and subsequent reports on NIS lines of questioning), the working assumption was that Hartwig had deliberately placed an electronic device between the first and second powder bags (the origin of the first explosion) as a suicidal act due to a homosexual affair (with the life insurance beneficiary) gone bad. However, no actual evidence of a homosexual affair was found. One Iowa sailor, under intense NIS questioning, implicated Hartwig, but then recanted his testimony as soon as he was asked to sign. (Nevertheless, this recanted testimony shows up in later documents and congressional testimony without reference to it being recanted.)
It does seem odd that the story should break on a financial newspaper.
Edited to take out “Journal” from headline. Originally had “Unnamed Industry Officials tell Wall Street Journal Flight Attendant May Have Been to Blame for….” The headline was exceeded length allowed missed removing Journal. I screwed up and I’m sorry.