U.S. Sen. Richard Blumenthal this week led a highly anticipated hearing that featured whistleblowers who spoke about aircraft manufacturer Boeing’s troubled safety record.
“Our purpose today is to hear from whistleblowers who have personal, eyewitness, factual stories to tell about Boeing putting profits ahead of safety, putting stock price ahead of quality, production speed ahead of responsibility,” said Blumenthal, the chair of the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
He noted that the whistleblowers, many of whom are still employed by Boeing, had come forward at great personal risk, a number of them reporting they had suffered harassment, isolation and even threats of violence.
Blumenthal underscored the need for a shift in Boeing’s culture to prioritize safety, “To create a genuine and comprehensive culture of safety, Boeing must create workplace conditions where everyone feels comfortable reporting quality and safety concerns, even in situations where concerns turn out to be unfounded. Even where the complaints are mistaken, Boeing’s culture must be one where employees are encouraged to speak up.”
Sam Salehpour is a current quality engineer at Boeing and has worked at the company for 17 years on their 777 and 787 aircraft. His role was to identify safety issues, report and resolve them.
Salehpour opened his testimony by saying he didn’t want to be testifying but also didn’t want to see another 787 or 777 crash.
“I have serious concerns about the safety of the 787 and 777 aircraft and am willing to take on professional risk to talk about them.” He said.
“I have analyzed Boeing’s own data to conclude that the company has taken manufacturers shortcuts on the 787 program that would significantly reduce the airplanes safety and the life cycle. Since 2013 there have been serious issues on the 787 program not properly closing thousands of gaps in its assembly of the fuselage on major joints.”
Salehpour added that Boeing’s public relations department refers to these gaps as the width of a human hair but added that at 35,000 feet these gaps are the difference between life and death.
Blumenthal thanked Salehpour for coming forward and giving testimony especially because of behaviors directed towards him by Boeing employees.
“Not once, twice, but consistently and constantly over a period of years. And as a result, he was isolated, transferred, even threatened, for refusing to stay silent. What Boeing did was, in effect, try to silence him, conceal, and cover up the facts that he was trying to bring to their attention about basic defects in manufacturing.”
Salehpour’s own vehicle was deliberately damaged with a bolt through one of its tires which he said posed not only a symbolic message to him but also personal risk to his safety.
Boeing’s 737 Max planes have come under intense examination. In January, a door plug blew out on an Alaska Airlines flight over Portland, Ore. The 737 Max line had crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.
Ed Pierson is the Executive Director of the Foundation for Aviation Safety and a former Boeing senior manager of 10 years, who worked on the 737 Max airplane.
“Since the first Boeing 737 Max airplane crash, I have spent every day thinking about the victims, their families and the millions of people who fly Boeing airplanes. I’ve done everything I can to continue telling the world that the Max airplane is still unsafe and to alert authorities to Boeing’s dangerous manufacturing.”
Pierson added, “The manufacturing conditions that led to the two 737 Max disasters also led to the Alaskan blow out accident.”
Pierson told how he had on multiple occasions informed Boeing bosses to close down the 737 factory, but those requests went unheard.
And that despite his whistleblowing testimony back in 2019 about Boeing’s chaotic manufacturing practices and the government investigation at the time of a 737 Max crash being inadequate, he wasn’t surprised that nothing has changed at Boeing by way of safety.
Further testimony came from Joe Jacobson, who also worked for Boeing for 11 years as an engineer from 1984 to 1995 on the 767 and 777 aircraft programs.
After he left, he joined the FAA and recalled an incident involving Lion Air Flight 610 that crashed into the Java Sea in October of 2018, shortly after takeoff, killing all 189 people on board.
Jacobson recalled seeing a report about the crash and finding out that the reason for it was a serious design fault in the aircraft.
“When the House Report was released in September 2020, I finally understood why I hadn’t known about MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) Boeing meeting minutes from June 2013 recorded the reason, saying ‘If we emphasize MCAS is a new function there may be a greater certification and training impact.’ Boeing intentionally hid the design from FAA Engineers and airline pilots.”
Jacobson went on to say, “Had we known at least a half dozen experienced FAA Engineers in the Seattle Office would have immediately rejected the original MCAS design. Boeing’s concealment led to two crashes and 346 deaths.”
During the hearing Blumenthal said the committee had received outreach from other individuals affiliated with Boeing voicing their concerns saying, “When we raised concerns that the work was not in accordance with the process and procedures, we were ordered to just do it and told there were hundreds of others waiting in line outside the gate wanting our jobs.”
As the two-hour hearing drew to a close Blumenthal and the committee members thanked the men for their testimony.
The committee said the objective of the hearings was not to drive Boeing to fail but to succeed and restore its reputation.
They expected both Boeing and the FAA to fully cooperate and appear before the committee including Boeing’s CEO to tell people why a promise made by the company five years ago to improve safety had not been fulfilled.
In a statement, Boeing said that in 13 years, the 787 fleet has safely transported more than 850 million passengers on more than 4.2 million flights and the 777 fleet has safely flown more than 3.9 billion passengers.
“We are fully confident in the safety and durability of the 787 Dreamliner. We are fully confident in the safety of the 777, which remains the most successful widebody airplane family in aviation history,” the statement said.
