An employee works on the tail of a Boeing Co. Dreamliner 787 aircraft on the production line at the company's final assembly plant in North Charleston, South Carolina.
Travis Dove | Bloomberg | Getty Images
Boeing on Monday defended the quality and safety testing of its 787 Dreamliner and 777 planes, days after one of the company's engineers went public with accusations that the planemaker had taken “shortcuts” to speed up production of the planes.
Whistleblower Sam Salehpour said last week that Boeing's 787 assembly was putting excessive strain on aircraft connections, which could shorten the lifespan of some planes. Boeing denied the allegations, calling them “inaccurate” and saying it stood behind the safety of the planes.
Salehpour will appear along with another whistleblower who worked at Boeing, a former aviation official and an independent safety expert, at a Senate hearing on Wednesday on aircraft safety, called “Examining Boeing's Broken Safety Culture: Firsthand Accounts.”
Salehpour's claims come as Boeing faces intense scrutiny after a door plug blew out of a 737 Max plane in January. The narrow-body aircraft is Boeing's best-seller and the impact at 16,000 feet puts passengers inches away from tragedy. Since the accident, the Federal Aviation Administration has prevented Boeing from increasing production of that plane.
In a roughly two-hour presentation with reporters on Monday, two Boeing technical executives detailed the company's stress and safety testing for the 787, which includes testing the plane for 165,000 cycles, each intended to complete the equivalent of a flight. offer, under varying circumstances. In addition, the fuselage skin was struck by a 300-pound slingshot, the engineers said.
Steve Chisholm, chief engineer for Boeing's mechanical and structural engineering, said Boeing caused damage to fuselage panels during intensive testing that was repeated more times than what aircraft would experience in service, “and the damage did not increase.”
Salehpour's allegations involve small spaces where parts of the 787's carbon composite fuselage meet. He said Boeing used force to join the pieces together and did not properly measure the gaps. He and his lawyers sent a letter to the FAA in January outlining his allegations, and the agency is investigating.
The whistleblower said on a call with reporters last week that he “literally saw people jumping on the pieces of the 777” to get them in line. Boeing said later that day that these claims are false and that it has “full confidence in the safety and durability of the 777 family.”
Boeing previously suspended deliveries of the 787 for almost two years until August 2022 due to incorrect clearances on some parts of the aircraft's fuselage.
“These claims about the structural integrity of the 787 are inaccurate and do not represent the comprehensive work Boeing has done to ensure the long-term quality and safety of the aircraft,” the aircraft manufacturer said in a statement in response to the claims. “The issues raised have been subject to a rigorous technical review overseen by the FAA. This analysis has confirmed that these issues do not pose any safety concerns and that the aircraft will maintain its service life for decades.”
Salehpour's lawyers also claim that Boeing retaliated against him after he raised concerns by excluding him from meetings and moving him from the 787 program to the company's 777 plan.
Boeing declined to comment on these specific allegations last week, citing the FAA's ongoing whistleblower investigation, but said, “Retaliation is strictly prohibited at Boeing.”
The company will report quarterly results on April 24, after which it will face questions from investors about aircraft safety, production rates and FAA oversight.
