Boeing whistleblower: ‘They are putting out defective airplanes’

Boeing’s already battered reputation took another hit at two Senate committee hearings Wednesday on Capitol Hill, with witnesses questioning how the company builds airplanes and the safety of those planes.

Boeing’s already battered reputation took another hit at two Senate committee hearings Wednesday on Capitol Hill, with witnesses questioning how the company builds airplanes and the safety of those planes. One of the key witnesses was Boeing engineer Sam Salehpour, a whistleblower who said he’s been threatened for bringing safety concerns to his managers over several years, but that he was testifying due to his belief that “they are putting out defective airplanes.” “I have serious concerns about the safety of the 787 and 777 aircraft and I’m willing to take on professional risk to talk about them,” he said in his opening statement. He said when he raised concerns, “I was ignored. I was told not to create delays. I was told, frankly, to shut up.” He said that Boeing used “unmeasured and unlimited” amount of force – including people jumping on pieces of the airplane – to correct misalignment between sections of jets, and that the gap ended up being much more than the 5/1000th of an inch allowed by Boeing’s own standards. Boeing did not have any witnesses at either hearing Wednesday, but at a briefing earlier this week it defended the standards used to build planes. It said the 5/1000th of a inch gap is only the width of a human hair or two pieces of paper, and was a “hyper-conservative” standard. It said even when the gap is wider than what was originally proscribed, inspections of the jets showed no signs of fatigue or other problems even after years in service. But Salehpour said that Boeing’s assurances are invalid.