Another whistleblower accused airline Boeing of taking shortcuts when building the 777 and 787 Dreamliner planes and of retaliating against him when he raised concerns with management.
Sam Salehpour’s allegations come just a month after the mysterious suicide of Boeing whistleblower John Barnett, a former employee who made similar claims, including claims of retaliation in a still-unresolved lawsuit.
Salehpour will now participate in a government hearing on Boeing’s safety record amid numerous public near-disasters this year. The company’s outgoing CEO, David Calhoun, has also been summoned to appear before the panel on April 17. It has not been confirmed whether he will actually appear.
Salehpour is expected to detail safety issues related to the manufacturing and assembly of the 787 Dreamliner.
The subcommittee said in a letter that those problems could create “potentially catastrophic security risks.”
On Tuesday, Salehpour said during a conference call involving his attorneys that he “literally saw people jumping on pieces of the plane to align them,” he reports. CNN. These observations were made in 2021.
“Rather than heed its warnings, Boeing prioritized bringing the planes to market as quickly as possible, despite the well-known and well-substantiated issues it raised,” attorneys Debra Katz and Lisa Banks said in a statement Tuesday. .
Outgoing Boeing CEO David Calhoun will be called to testify before a government panel as part of its investigations into Boeing.
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In early January, an unused emergency exit door blew up on a new Boeing 737 Max shortly after takeoff from Portland International, prompting a still-ongoing Justice Department investigation.
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The Society of Professional Aerospace Engineering Employees (SPEEA) said Salehpour is a member who works at the Boeing plant in Everett, Washington. The engineers union said it could not comment on Salehpour’s specific concerns.
A Boeing spokesperson said the company is cooperating with the subcommittee’s investigation and “has offered to provide documents, testimony and technical reports.”
The Federal Aviation Administration has also been investigating Salehpour’s allegations since February, according to the subcommittee. The FAA did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Salehpour, whose concerns were outlined in a New York Times article On Tuesday he is also expected to describe the retaliation he faced after raising his concerns.
According to that account, Salehpour worked on the 787 but became alarmed by changes in the assembly of the fuselage, the main body of the plane.
That process involves assembling and fastening giant sections of the fuselage, each produced by a different company, according to Salehpour’s account.
Salehpour told the Times that he believed Boeing was taking shortcuts that led to excessive force in the assembly process, creating warps in the composite material used in the plane’s outer skin.
The original whistleblower, John Barnett, had alleged that second-rate parts were literally removed from scrap bins before being installed on planes being built to avoid delays.
An Alaska Airlines Boeing 737-9 Max flies over the Boeing manufacturing facility in Everett, where Salehpour worked.
The wreckage of the Ethiop Airlines Boeing 737-MAX plane is seen on March 11, 2019.
A Boeing 737 MAX-8 that plunged into the sea 13 minutes after taking off from Tangerang, Indonesia, on October 29, 2018. The crash killed all 189 people on board.
These composites typically consist of layers of plastic reinforced by a mesh of carbon or glass fibers, which increases tensile strength and makes them a useful substitute for heavier metals.
But composites can lose those benefits if they become twisted or otherwise deformed. Salehpour alleged that such problems could create increased material fatigue, possibly leading to premature failure of the composite, according to the Times report.
Over thousands of flights, those fuselage pieces could break in mid-flight.
By Salehpour’s account, Boeing not only failed to take his concerns seriously, but silenced him and transferred him to work on a different plane, a move it took in retaliation.
In a 1,500-word statement, Boeing said it had “full confidence” in the 787 and called concerns about structural integrity “inaccurate.”
Boeing added that the issues raised in the Times article “do not present any safety concerns” and said the 787 “will maintain its service life for several decades.”
“Retaliation is strictly prohibited at Boeing,” the company added in the statement, noting that it encourages employees to “speak up when problems arise.”
Boeing’s safety record has been under the microscope since a door panel on a 737 Max 9 plane exploded over Oregon in early January.
It has been alleged that Boeing had such a “cozy” relationship with the Federal Aviation Administration that it could reject any criticism.
The panel covered a space left for an additional emergency door on the plane, operated by Alaska Airlines. The pilots were able to land safely and there were no injuries.
But the subsequent discovery by accident investigators that bolts meant to secure the panel were missing shook Boeing, which once boasted an enviable safety culture.
Alaska Airlines and United Airlines, the two U.S. airlines that fly the Max 9, also reported finding loose bolts and other hardware on other panels, suggesting that quality problems with the door plugs were not limited to just one plane. .
Both the 787 and 737 Max have been plagued by production defects that sporadically delayed deliveries and left airlines without planes during busy travel seasons.
Calhoun, the chief executive, announced in March that he will retire at the end of the year. This followed the departure of another high-ranking Boeing executive and the decision of Boeing’s chairman not to run for re-election in May.
“Voluntary reporting without fear of retaliation is a critical component of aviation safety,” the FAA said. ‘We strongly encourage all members of the aviation industry to share information. “We thoroughly investigated all reports.”
An agency source said the FAA met with the whistleblower.
Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s office said his investigative subcommittee will hold a hearing on Boeing issues with Salehpour on April 17 titled “Examining Boeing’s Broken Safety Culture: Firsthand Accounts.”
Blumenthal added that he wants Calhoun, who said last month he will resign at the end of the year, to testify at a future hearing. The panel had initially sought to have Calhoun testify at next week’s hearing, according to a March 19 letter.
“We want to give Boeing the opportunity to explain to the American people why, in light of recent apparent safety failures, the public should trust Boeing’s engineering and assembly processes,” said Blumenthal and Sen. Ron Johnson, the top Republican on the panel. he wrote.
Boeing has offered to provide documents, testimony and technical reports to the Senate subcommittee, the company said in a statement emailed to Reuters on Tuesday.
Separately, the US Justice Department is investigating whether Boeing violated a 2021 agreement that protected the US planemaker from prosecution following two fatal MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019.
That January 2021 agreement, known as a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA), gave the plane maker an avenue to avoid prosecution on the charge of conspiracy to defraud the FAA.
To determine whether Boeing violated the agreement, prosecutors are expected to rely heavily on the findings of FAA investigations, a person familiar with the matter previously told Reuters.
In August 2022, the FAA approved delivery of the first Boeing 787 Dreamliner since 2021 after the manufacturer made inspection and modernization changes necessary to meet certification standards.
There are currently about 1,100 Dreamliners in service, Boeing said.