Aviation officials push back on jokes about flying safely
The nation’s top aviation safety officials sought to reassure travelers this week that flying in the United States remains incredibly safe, despite a series of high-profile mishaps and an ongoing probe at Boeing that have spooked the public and turned airlines into fodder for late-night comedians and social media meme pages.
Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg stressed at a conference hosted by news site Axios that flying was the safest way to travel. Michael Whitaker, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration, repeated that message on NBC’s “Nightly News.” And in a post on X, Jennifer Homendy, the chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, compared the airlines’ safety record against the 118 people who die on average each day in car crashes.
But their voices have to compete with the likes of comedian Jimmy Fallon, who targeted Boeing in a limerick on his show last week: “Spring break the students were going — excited, they all were a-glowin’. Then they let out a squeal, lost the door and the wheel, guess they shouldn’t have flown on a Boeing.”
The dueling messages reflect the complexity of understanding the current moment in aviation safety, which requires untangling several seemingly contradictory threads, experts say. January’s midair blowout on an Alaska Airlines flight was dangerous and could have led to people being killed, but the US airline system has gone 15 years without a fatal crash. Subsequent investigations turned up serious quality control problems in Boeing’s 737 Max factory, but the FAA says it is continuing to certify planes coming off the production line as safe. A string of other recent in-flight incidents prompted the FAA on Saturday to announce it would increase its oversight of at least one major air carrier, United Airlines — but experts say there’s no sign of a systemic problem.
The NTSB, which is leading the investigation into the Alaska incident, is responsible for investigating every aviation accident involving significant damage to an aircraft or injuries to people on board. So far this year, it has opened 10 investigations into airline flights, compared with 13 in the same period last year. Some recent incidents that have attracted attention — like a United Airlines flights that lost a tire — did not rise to the level requiring an NTSB investigation.
Robert Sumwalt, a former chairman of the safety board, said he sees no evidence flying has become less safe right now. While he said it’s not acceptable for wheels to fall off planes or a jet to run over the end of a runway, the system has redundancies in place to keep people from getting hurt.
“What I believe we have is a situation where once one or two of these things happen, the media starts jumping on these things,” Sumwalt said in an email. “It’s a feeding frenzy.”
For now, the safety worries do not appear to be dampening Americans’ enthusiasm for air travel. In recent polls, respondents have said they still view flying as generally safe. And Airlines for America, a group representing major carriers, forecast that spring travel demand will be up 6 percent compared with last year, predicting that a record 167.1 million people will fly in March and April.
“We are proud of our safety record yet recognize that we cannot become complacent and must always exercise vigilance,” the group said in a statement. “We take every incident seriously and investigate — coordinating closely and working collaboratively with industry partners and government agencies.”
Nonetheless, news reports have quickly become fodder for scathing memes about Boeing and aviation safety that have recently spread across nearly every social media platform. On Instagram, large humor accounts including @funnyhoodvidz with 15.6 million followers, @thetinderblog with over 4 million followers, and @moistbuddha with over 3.7 million followers have posted memes mocking Boeing and its 737 jets.
Dozens of pages have shared a post by X user Jon Drake that reads, “In my 737 era (falling apart, few loose screws, not properly maintained for several years).”
On TikTok, searches for the word Boeing surface hundreds of videos commenting on recent safety slip-ups and the death of a Boeing whistleblower.
‘What I believe we have is a situation where once one or two of these things happen, the media starts jumping on these things.’
ROBERT SUMWALT, former chair of NTSB
“You couldn’t pay me to step on Boeing right now,” said one TikToker with over 1.3 million followers who goes by the handle @justinonTikTok.
The video has over 270,000 views and a slew of comments saying that they too are too scared to fly the planes. Some comments question the company’s role in the whistleblower’s death. (Authorities have said he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.)
Don Caldwell, general manager of Know Your Meme, an internet meme database, said that the company has seen a significant spike in memes about Boeing and safety concerns.
Some companies might respond by trying to engage online directly, but Caldwell said that doesn’t appear to a good option for Boeing.
“The memes online now are very critical of Boeing and their practices,” Caldwell said. “They present Boeing as incompetent and their planes as dangerous.”