My dad’s last words to me before he died on doomed Boeing 737 Max haunt me – I carry memento from crash site everywhere

JUST before Joseph Kuria Waithaka boarded a Boeing 737 Max flight in 2019, he called his daughter Zipporah to tell her “I love you”.

Now the memento of her dad that the 26-year-old student from Hull carries with her everywhere is a piece of shrapnel from the doomed jet that ploughed into the ground in Ethiopia at 700 mph.

Father-of-five Joseph was one of seven British passengers who perished on the plane that experts believe should never have been allowed to fly.

After one of the new aircraft crashed into the sea in Indonesia in October 2018, killing 189 people, bosses from the American aviation giant insisted that the Max was totally safe and hinted that pilot error was to blame.  

But a shocking new Netflix documentary, called Downfall: The Case Against Boeing, suggests that privately, the authorities feared the jets were so unsafe that one might crash every TWO years.

In fact it took just five months for exactly the same catastrophic error to strike, leaving Zipporah among the relatives of 157 families bereaved.

In November the manufacturer admitted full responsibility for the crash in Ethiopia, but for Joseph’s daughter the fight for justice goes on.

Even though the authorities fined Boeing £1.85billion for the cover up, their top boss received a huge pay off rather than facing criminal charges.

In the documentary, which streams on the platform from February 18, executives are accused of putting profit ahead of safety.

An internal report revealed that if a pilot reacted in less than 10 seconds to the activation of an automatic system known as MCAS, the “failure” would be “catastrophic.”

But Boeing allegedly didn’t tell pilots about MCAS, let alone train them in how to deal with such an emergency.

Even though aviation authorities have now cleared the 737 Max to fly because the issue has been fixed, Zipporah refuses to get on one.

She told The Sun: “For me there are still big questions that Boeing is yet to answer and I wouldn’t fly on a 737 Max.

“There was an opportunity to honour my dad in Utah, and I saw that one of my connecting flights was a 737, and so I cancelled the flight and tried to rebook.

“I have to look at which model of plane I will be flying on.”

'Pilot error'

The problems for Boeing began when its main competitor Airbus, which is partly made in the UK, designed a far more fuel efficient passenger jet.

Rather than designing a new plane from scratch, they saved time by updating the 737, which had been up in the air since 1967.

The decision to put larger engines further forward on the existing frame meant that software, called Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), was needed to automatically push the plane’s nose down in certain scenarios.

But while there were two sensors for dealing with high speed issues, there was only one for low speeds.

For me there are still big questions that Boeing is yet to answer. I wouldn’t fly on a 737 Max

Zipporah Kuria

Engineers who expressed concern that this left the plane vulnerable if that one sensor was faulty were overruled.

The Max was certified to fly in March 2017 and became the company’s biggest ever seller.

Just 18 months later, Lion Air flight 610 from Jakarta in Indonesia plummeted into the Java Sea in good weather 13 minutes after take off. 

Swiftly it was put down to "pilot error".

Garima Sethi, the wife of deceased Lion Air pilot Bhavye Suneja, says: “What mattered to my husband was the safety and security of his passengers. The grief I felt for those passengers and families was unbelievable.”

Crash 'every two years'

Publicly, Boeing’s chief executive Dennis Muilenburg insisted the jet was safe.

Behind the scenes, negotiations were going on between his company and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in the United States on how to solve the Max’s problem.

The FAA’s risk assessment estimated that a Max would crash 15 times during the 30 years it was likely to be in service.

Boeing told them they could have a software fix within six weeks, and the safety regulator accepted that solution.

What mattered to my husband was the safety and security of his passengers. The grief I felt for those passengers and families was unbelievable

Garima Sethi, wife of pilot Bhavye Suneja

When Joseph, a 55-year-old former probation officer who was trying to give opportunities to youngsters in Kenya, stepped on a Max in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa on March 10th 2019, the plane’s safety issues were still unresolved.

Zipporah recalls: “I think I was the last phone call he made. He just called me to tell me he loved me, and that he would call me when he got to the other side, which never happened. But I am glad that we got to speak.”

Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 nosedived into a field six minutes after lifting off from the runway, leaving a massive crater and no identifiable bodies to recover.

'Out of body experience'

When his distraught family arrived at the crash site they searched for any sign of him.

Zipporah says: “It was overwhelming, it was like we were having an out of body experience. 

“The crater was hard to marry with where my dad had died and the torn clothes we were seeing, baby shoes and luggage and even seatbelts still attached, and the rest of it gone.

“I have a piece of my father’s passport and a piece of shrapnel, a piece of the plane that I grabbed, that I keep with me always to remind me.

“Among his belongings were five pictures of me and my siblings and my mum. It is crazy to think that stuff can outlast us.”

I have a piece of my father’s passport and a piece of shrapnel, a piece of the plane that I grabbed, that I keep with me always to remind me

Zipporah Kuria

Over 400 people turned up for Joseph's memorial service in Hull, which was a sign of his status in the East Yorkshire community.

Describing her “tea loving” dad, Zipporah continues: “My father was an incredible man. He was a humanitarian through and through. 

“He was a loving and present father. I have to look at my two younger sisters and imagine a world where he doesn’t exist and I can’t imagine what that is like.”

Despite the second crash, the American aviation authorities still did not ground the Max, until then US President Donald Trump told them to.

Boeing introduced several changes to the plane’s software system to make it safer, including that MCAS will only kick in if two sensors agree, and that it won’t override the pilot’s ability to take control.

The troubled jet was cleared to start flying again in the UK a year ago.

Multi-million pay-off

Boeing also asked Muilenburg to resign, but he received a £46million pay off that enraged the families of those who died.

Zipporah says: “Muilenburg received a pay off and my dad, who was the same age as Muilenberg, paid for that with his life.”

In January 2021 Boeing admitted conspiring to defraud the United States for misleading statements and agreed to pay the £1.85bn fine.

The Acting Assistant Attorney General, David P Burns of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said at the time: “Boeing’s employees chose the path of profit over candour by concealing material information from the FAA concerning the operation of its 737 Max aeroplane and engaging in an effort to cover up their deception.”

The plea bargain meant Boeing was immune from further criminal prosecution.

That, though, didn’t cover employees.

In October the company’s former chief technical pilot Mark Forkner was charged with providing "false, inaccurate, and incomplete information" to US regulators.

The bereaved families are pressing for others to face further justice.

Zipporah explains: “Fifteen families and 87 supporting families want to get that immunity overturned and to allow us to pursue criminal charges.

“The extent to which we can pursue the law is unclear. We want to go for manslaughter, the whole way.

“After the Indonesian crash the way they dealt with it was inhumane. They weighed up the cost and they thought human life was worth less than their bonuses.”

Downfall: The Case Against Boeing streams on Netflix from February 18.