Boeing defends 787 Dreamliner safety after whistleblower claims

Salehpour is scheduled to appear Wednesday along with another whistleblower who worked at Boeing, a former aviation executive and an independent safety expert, at a Senate hearing on aviation safety titled “Examining the Culture of Boeing’s Broken Safety: First-Hand Accounts”.

Salehpour’s claims come as Boeing faces scrutiny after a door plug on a 737 Max plane exploded in January. The narrow-body plane is Boeing’s best-seller, and the eruption at 16,000 feet put passengers on the verge of tragedy. Since the accident, the Federal Aviation Administration has blocked Boeing from increasing production of the plane.

In a roughly two-hour presentation with reporters Monday, two Boeing engineering officials detailed the company’s 787 stress and safety testing, which includes testing the plane on 165 000 cycles, each expected to provide the equivalent of one flight, under varying conditions. Additionally, the fuselage skin was struck by a 300-pound pendulum, engineers said.

Steve Chisholm, Boeing’s chief engineer of mechanical and structural engineering, said Boeing caused damage to the fuselage panels during intense testing that was repeated more times than the plane would experience in service, ” and the damage has not increased.

Salehpour’s allegations involve tiny gaps where pieces of the 787’s carbon composite fuselage meet. He said Boeing used force to put the pieces together and failed to properly measure the gaps. He and his lawyers sent a letter to the FAA in January detailing his allegations, and the agency is now investigating.

The whistleblower said in a call with reporters last week that he “literally saw people jumping on the parts” of the 777 “to line them up.” Boeing said later in the day that those claims were inaccurate and that it was “fully confident in the safety and durability of the 777 family.”

Boeing previously suspended deliveries of the 787 for nearly two years, until August 2022, due to incorrect spacing on parts of the planes’ 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 these claims. affirmations. “The issues raised underwent a rigorous technical review under the supervision of the FAA. This analysis validated that these issues do not present any safety concerns and that the aircraft will maintain its service life over several decades.”

Salehpour’s lawyers also claim Boeing retaliated against him after he expressed concerns by excluding him from meetings and removing him from the 787 program and putting him into the company’s 777 plan.

Boeing declined last week to comment on the specific allegations, citing the FAA’s ongoing whistleblower investigation, but said, “Retaliation is strictly prohibited at Boeing.”

The company is expected to report quarterly results on April 24, when it will face investor questions about aircraft safety, production rates and FAA oversight.