An employee works on the tail of a Boeing Co. Dreamliner 787 aircraft on a production line at the company’s assembly plant in North Charleston, South Carolina.
Travis Dove | Bloomberg | Getty Images
boeing company An engineer at the company on Monday defended quality and safety testing of its 787 Dreamliner and 777 aircraft, days after publicly accusing the planemaker of taking “shortcuts” to speed up production of the planes.
Whistleblower Sam Salehpour said last week that the assembly of the Boeing 787 puts excessive stress on the aircraft’s joints and may shorten the service life of some aircraft. Boeing has denied the accusations, calling them “inaccurate” and saying it stands by the safety of the plane.
Salepour is scheduled to appear at Wednesday’s Senate hearing on aircraft safety, called “Examining Boeing’s Broken Safety Culture: Chapter First-hand information”.
Salipour’s accusation comes as Boeing is under intense scrutiny after a door jam exploded on a 737 Max aircraft in January. The blowout at 16,000 feet brought passengers within striking distance of tragedy on the narrow-body jet, Boeing’s best-selling plane. Since the crash, the Federal Aviation Administration has blocked Boeing from increasing production of the plane.
In a roughly two-hour presentation to reporters on Monday, two Boeing engineering managers detailed the company’s stress and safety testing of the 787, which included 165,000 cycles of testing the plane, each designed to perform different tasks. conditions to provide testing equivalent to one flight. In addition, engineers said the fuselage skin was struck by a 300-pound pendulum.
Steve Chisholm, Boeing’s chief engineer of mechanical and structural engineering, said Boeing caused damage to the fuselage panels during rigorous testing that was repeated more times than the aircraft has ever experienced in service. “And the damage didn’t increase.”
Salehpour’s charges involve a tight space where pieces of the 787’s carbon composite fuselage meet. He said Boeing used force to join parts together but failed to properly measure gaps. He and his attorneys sent a letter to the FAA in January detailing his allegations, which the agency is investigating.
The whistleblower told reporters last week that he “did see people jumping on various parts of the 777” to “keep them in line.” Boeing said later in the day that those claims were inaccurate and that it had “full confidence in the safety and durability of the 777 family.”
Boeing had previously suspended 787 deliveries for nearly two years until August 2022 due to incorrect spacing on some parts of the fuselage.
“These claims about the 787’s structural integrity are inaccurate and do not represent Boeing’s comprehensive efforts to ensure the quality and long-term safety of the aircraft,” the planemaker said in a statement responding to the claims. “The issues raised have been subject to rigorous engineering inspections under the oversight of the Federal Aviation Administration. This analysis confirms that these issues do not pose any safety concerns and that the aircraft will maintain its useful life for decades.”
Salipur’s attorneys also claim that Boeing retaliated against him after he expressed concerns, excluding him from meetings and moving him from the 787 program to the company’s 777 program.
Boeing declined to comment last week on the specific allegations, citing an ongoing FAA whistleblower investigation, but said, “Boeing strictly prohibits retaliation.”
The company is scheduled to report quarterly results on April 24, when it will face investor questions about aircraft safety, productivity and FAA regulations.
About The Author
