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 visi...