Ohio's attorney general is suing Boeing (BOE, Washington National), claiming that its safety issues adversely impacted two local pension funds and their investors. Dave Yost filed the lawsuit at the US District Court of the Eastern District of Virginia on October 21, saying there had been a "pattern of safety and compliance failures" at the manufacturer.

Yost is suing on behalf of the Ohio Public Employees Retirement System and the State Teachers Retirement System of Ohio.

"The safety failures at Boeing are endangering lives and threatening the financial security of shareholders," he said when announcing the lawsuit. He added that Boeing's board members had breached their fiduciary duties by failing to oversee the company properly. He said board members and senior management, including former CEO Dave Calhoun, failed to implement adequate safety measures or to address whistleblower concerns about the company's production processes.

Yost is seeking to compel Boeing’s board of directors to improve safety and oversight of the company.

"The failure of Boeing’s directors and officers to implement and oversee Boeing’s safety and compliance functions in good faith led to incalculable damage to Boeing’s relationships with its regulators, customers, lenders, potential employees, and the flying public,” the filing reads.

Yost references the January incident involving a B737-9 flying for Alaska Airlines (AS, Seattle Tacoma International) when a door plug panel blew out inflight. "Thankfully, no one was sitting in the row where the door plug blew out, and all passengers and crew survived the incident," he said. "Boeing’s reputation was not so fortunate.”

Meanwhile Boeing has just reported a third quarter loss of USD6.2 billion. CEO Kelly Ortberg said Boeing was at a crossroads and "we've had serious lapses in our performance across the company which have disappointed many of our customers."

Boeing factory workers voted on October 23 to reject the company’s latest contract offer and to continue a six-week strike that has halted production of certain aircraft types. On October 19, a satellite built by Boeing for Intelsat disintegrated while in orbit in what one space agency called an "instantaneous and high-energy" event. Authorities are tracking pieces of the satellite as they re-enter Earth's atmosphere and burn up.