Flying Blind: The 737 MAX Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing

by Peter Robison

Two brothers in California, Melvin and Bennett Riffel, had been on a last adventure together before Melvin’s wife, Brittney, was due to have their baby. A thousand people mourned them at the St. Joseph Catholic Church in Redding, California, many joining a spirited wake afterward at the Redding Elks Lodge. A few men came in Hawaiian shirts like those Melvin had worn, and one couple wore shirts printed with the brothers’ pictures. “Like I always told the boys—life isn’t always fair and sometimes it will knock you on your butt,” their father, Ike Riffel, told people at the Elks Lodge. “Let the healing begin. Let’s get up. Let’s start throwing punches.” Brittney’s baby, born two months later, was a girl.