Juliette Michel/AFP/Getty Images
A Boeing 787 Dreamliner at the airline’s assembly plant in North Charleston, South Carolina.
CNN
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Federal authorities say they are investigating Boeing Co. after a whistleblower repeatedly raised concerns about two wide-body jets and claimed the company retaliated against them.
Boeing engineer and whistleblower Sam Salepour said Boeing cut corners when building the 777 and 787 Dreamliner, and the risks could become catastrophic as the planes age. It is claimed that there is. The New York Times first reported the whistleblowing.
His formal complaint to the Federal Aviation Administration, filed in January and made public Tuesday, is not specific to the new 737 Max plane, which has been grounded twice by the agency.
Salepour said Tuesday that his complaint raises “two quality issues that could dramatically shorten the life of the aircraft.”
“We’re not doing this because we want Boeing to fail, we’re doing it because we want Boeing to succeed and prevent crashes,” Salepour told reporters during a conference call Tuesday. “The truth is, Boeing can’t keep going like this. I think they need to do a little better.”
The FAA interviewed Salepour as part of its investigation, said his attorney Lisa Banks. The FAA said it would investigate all whistleblowing complaints.
“Voluntary reporting without fear of retaliation is an important element of aviation safety,” the FAA said. “We strongly encourage everyone in the aviation industry to share this information.”
A Senate subcommittee is also expected to address the concerns at a hearing next week.
Boeing did not immediately comment on the claims about the 777, but disputed Salepour’s concerns about the 787.
“These claims about the structural integrity of the 787 are inaccurate and do not represent Boeing’s comprehensive efforts to ensure the quality and long-term safety of the aircraft,” the company said in a statement. Stated.
Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner planes, which entered service in 2011, have a 50-year lifespan and can fly about 44,000 flights each, the company said.
But Salepour’s suit alleges that the crew assembling the plane failed to properly fill small gaps when joining together the separately manufactured fuselage parts. Mr Salepour’s lawyers argued this would cause further wear and tear on the plane, shortening its lifespan and putting it at risk of “catastrophic” failure.
This suspicion is not entirely new. The FAA and Boeing suspended deliveries of the new Dreamliner for about two years starting in 2021 while the agency investigated the gap. Boeing announced that it had made changes to its manufacturing process and that deliveries had finally resumed.
Boeing said it has “incorporated joint inspection and verification activities into our production systems to ensure that aircraft coming off the production line meet these specifications.”
Although the 787 Dreamliner was not grounded, the FAA twice investigated questions about quality control during the plane’s assembly process. The company maintained that the plane is still safe to fly.
Salepour’s lawyers said the FAA was surprised to find through his complaint that the gap remained a problem.
“I literally saw people jumping on parts of the plane and trying to align them,” Salepour said. “By jumping up and down, you’re deforming the parts so that the holes are temporarily aligned…That’s not how you build airplanes.”
Salepour said Boeing retaliated against him after he raised new concerns about the 787 and another model.
According to the whistleblower report, he raised the 787 excavation problem with management, but it was “ignored and ultimately transferred from the 787 program to the 777 program.”
In his new role, Salepour said he discovered substandard work on adjustments to body parts and pressure on engineers to greenlight work that had not yet been inspected.
Salepour said the problem involved more than 400 777s and more than 1,000 787s overall.
Boeing (BA) stock fell 2% on Tuesday.
This is a developing story. Will be updated.
