A new whistleblower report claims defective aircraft parts may have been used in Boeing jets. It comes as the company suffered a series of safety and quality issues, including a door panel that blew off Alaska Airlines airplane mid-flight in January.
The new complaint comes from Boeing employee Sam Mohawk, who alleges that when Boeing resumed production of the 737 Max after two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019, there was “a 300% increase” in reports of parts not meeting standards. manufacturer's standards.
Although those parts should have been removed from production and closely monitored, the report claims that “the 737 program lost hundreds of non-compliant parts.”
“Mohawk feared that non-compliant parts were being installed on the 737s and that this could lead to a catastrophic event,” the report said.
The outgoing CEO of Boeing Dave Calhoun will testify before the Senate on Capitol Hill on Tuesday.
The document also claims that when Boeing learned of an upcoming FAA inspection last June, many parts were moved to another location to “intentionally conceal improperly stored parts from the FAA.”
“We received this document late Monday evening and are reviewing the claims,” Boeing said in a statement. “We continually encourage employees to report any concerns as our priority is to ensure the safety of our aircraft and the flying public.”
In April, Boeing whistleblowersincluding Sam Salehpour, a quality engineer at the company, testified to lawmakers about safety concerns.
“Despite what Boeing officials say publicly, there is no safety culture at Boeing, and employees like me who speak out about flaws in manufacturing operations and lack of quality control are ignored, marginalized, threatened, sidelined and worse,” he told the members of an investigative panel of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Boeing denied Salehpour's allegations, saying in a statement: “A 787 can operate safely for at least 30 years before extensive airframe maintenance routines are required. Extensive and rigorous fuselage testing and heavy maintenance checks on nearly 700 aircraft in service to date have found no evidence of airframe fatigue.”
During his testimony, Calhoun is also expected to outline steps Boeing is taking to make improvements, including safety and Quality Action Plan recently submitted to the FAA, telling senators that Boeing's culture “is far from perfect, but we are taking action and making progress.”
“Boeing has adopted a broken safety culture of silence and not speaking up when it comes to reporting problems by its employees, and that kind of retaliation is a recipe for disaster,” said Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut.
Leaders of Boeing companies met federal regulators in May to discuss safety and quality issues.
“We revised Boeing's roadmap to set a new safety standard and underscored the need for them to take corrective action and effectively transform their safety culture,” said FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker. “On the FAA's part, we will ensure that they do that and that their solutions are effective. This does not mean the end of our increased scrutiny of Boeing and its suppliers, but it sets a new standard for the way Boeing does business.”
Calhoun will leave his position at the end of this year and a new CEO has not yet been appointed.
Kris Van Cleave
