Boeing’s Quality Control Team Meets to Discuss Safety and Bird Attacks

BOB, Boeing’s Chief Safety Officer, is seated at the head of a table in a conference room. He is surrounded by Boeing’s Quality Control team, including LIZ, the Chief Safety Engineering Officer.

 

BOB (looking at a clock that reads 1:30 PM): Thank you all for making this emergency standup first thing in the morning. I know everyone has a busy day of folding paper planes and setting them on fire, but we are at Code Red after another devastating crash.

 

LIZ (stacking a house of cards): My God. How could this happen?

 

BOB: We don’t know. Sometimes unforeseeable mysteries happen that are simply beyond comprehension or government accountability. Sometimes they happen again. Sometimes unforeseeable mysteries simply beyond comprehension happen a few more times, and it looks like this is our latest vagary of fate.

 

LIZ: Is it bad?

 

BOB (looking at a computer running Windows 95): Extremely. Stocks are down 5%. I just don’t understand how these planes keep crashing. Where’s the Independent Inspector for the FAA?

 

WILLIAM E. BOEING III: Right here, Sir. I personally vetted that plane, from the moment it came off the assembly line to the moment of my lunch break. It looked perfectly fine.

 

BOB: Well, we did everything we could. Meeting adjourned.

 

Everyone begins to get up.

 

LIZ (nonplussed): But what about damage control?

 

CARTER, Chief Factory Safety Officer, walks to the end of the room to pick up a broom and fire extinguisher.

 

BOB: Not so fast, Carter. She was speaking metaphorically.

 

CARTER: No Sir, it appears a machine has broken and the factory is on fire.

 

LIZ: My God. How could this happen?

 

BOB (indignantly): Carter, if you can’t make these important meetings and fulfill your job responsibilities, maybe we should have a different conversation entirely.

 

CARTER (putting down the extinguisher and dialing 912): Not a problem, Sir.

 

BOB: Take a seat, team. Liz is right. We have to go into damage-control mode and get to the bottom of this crash. But we need to ask the right questions.

 

LIZ: How could this happen?

 

BOB: Wrong question.

 

CARTER: Who’s responsible?

 

BOB: Even more wrong.

 

WILLIAM: Who can we blame?

 

BOB: Bingo. Someone’s head has to roll. We’ve crashed jets before, but this one takes the cake, and there have to be disciplinary measures.

 

CARTER: A russian missile.

 

WILLIAM: King Jong Un.

 

LIZ: Concrete walls.

 

The doors swing open and BOB’s assistant ALEX barges into the room. LIZ’s house of cards collapses from the gust.

 

LIZ (looking at her house of cards): My God. How could this happen?

 

ALEX: Sir, I’ve got it. Birds!

 

BOB: Birds?

 

ALEX: Birds. They’re saying a bird hit the plane and got stuck in the wing. Pilots call it a “bird strike.”

 

BOB: First the DOJ, then Congress; now a tactical bird attack? Unbelievable.

 

CARTER: But I thought the jet tried to land without its wheels deployed…

 

ALEX: The birds must have knocked them off.

 

BOB (pensively): Maybe it was birds all along.

 

CARTER: What about the plane that crashed from engine failure?

 

ALEX: Bird in the turbine.

 

CARTER: The cabin door that flew off mid-flight?

 

ALEX: Bird in the stratosphere.

 

CARTER: Crash from the automated nosedive error?

 

ALEX: Bird in the computer.

 

BOB (trembling): It’s a full-on bird invasion.

 

LIZ: My God—

 

BOB (interrupting LIZ): Save the thoughts and prayers for the vigils and Senate hearings. ‘Cause there will be plenty. People are really pissed this time. Don’t they know you gotta crack a few 800,000-pound deathtraps to make a mega-corporation that’s too big to fail?

 

WILLIAM (dejectedly): Why couldn’t this happen after inauguration day?

 

BOB (to WILLIAM): Looks like we’ll have to play defense for a few weeks. Even if this crash occurred entirely because of an all-out avian assault, we need to keep it from occurring again. Brainstorming, go!

 

LIZ: Parachutes for planes.

 

CARTER: Declare war against bird-kind.

 

WILLIAM: Transition to hydrogen-powered blimps.

 

CARTER: A more transparent control process.

 

Everyone boos.

 

LIZ: How about takeout? Maybe Korean?

 

BOB: Liz, you’re a visionary. Alex, promote Liz.

 

ALEX: Done.

 

BOB: And have a promotion yourself. Actually, everyone have a promotion. And a bonus.

 

LIZ: Can the Chief Safety Officer do that?

 

BOB: Alex, add “financial” to my title.

 

ALEX: Very well, Mr. Chief Financial-Safety Officer.

 

The room erupts in laughter and applause. BOB bounds from his seat and bows.

 

BOB: Meeting adjourned! Carter, you can tend to the factory fire now.

 

CARTER runs at full speed through the wall with a broom.