An employee works at the back of a Boeing Dreamliner 787 on a production line at Boeing’s final assembly facility in North Charleston, South Carolina.
Travis Dove | Bloomberg | Getty Images
boeing Days after one of the company’s engineers went public with allegations that the aircraft maker took “shortcuts” to speed up production of the aircraft, the company said on Monday that the quality of its 787 Dreamliner and 777 aircraft Defended safety testing.
Whistleblower Sam Salepour said last week that the assembly of Boeing’s 787 planes puts undue stress on the plane’s joints, potentially shortening the lifespan of some planes. Boeing denied the allegations as “inaccurate” and said it stands by the safety of its aircraft.
Salepour will be joined by another whistleblower who worked at Boeing, a former aviation official, and a former aviation official at Wednesday’s Senate hearing on aircraft safety, “Investigating Boeing’s Broken Safety Culture: A First-hand Report.” , will attend along with independent safety experts.
Salepour’s claims come as Boeing is weathering intense scrutiny after a door plug on a 737 Max jet exploded in January. The narrow-body plane is Boeing’s best-selling plane, and the explosion at an altitude of 16,000 feet leaves passengers inches away from tragedy. Since the accident, the Federal Aviation Administration has blocked Boeing from increasing production of the plane.
In a nearly two-hour presentation with reporters on Monday, two Boeing engineering managers detailed stress and safety testing of the company’s 787 aircraft. The tests included testing the plane for 165,000 cycles, the equivalent of flying under a variety of conditions. In addition, the fuselage skin was struck by a 300-pound pendulum, engineers said.
Steve Chisholm, chief engineer of Boeing’s Mechanical and Structural Engineering division, said that Boeing had sustained damage to the fuselage panels during the intense testing, which was repeated more times than the aircraft would experience in service. It did not expand,” he said.
Salepour’s claims relate to the small spaces where parts of the 787’s carbon composite fuselage join together. He said Boeing used force to join the parts and did not properly measure gaps. He and his lawyers sent a letter to the FAA in January detailing the allegations, and the agency is investigating.
The whistleblower said on a call with reporters last week that he “saw people literally jumping on the pieces” of the 777 to get into position. Boeing said later the same day that those claims were inaccurate and that it had “full confidence in the safety and durability of the 777 family.”
Boeing previously suspended deliveries of the 787 for about two years, until August 2022, due to incorrect spacing in some parts of the plane’s fuselage.
“These claims regarding the structural integrity of the 787 are inaccurate and do not represent the comprehensive efforts made by Boeing to ensure the quality and long-term safety of the aircraft.” The manufacturer responded to this claim in a statement. “The issues raised were subject to rigorous technical examination under the supervision of the FAA. This analysis shows that these issues do not present a safety concern and that the aircraft will last for decades. It has been verified that it can be maintained.
Salepour’s lawyers also claim that after Salepour raised his concerns, Boeing retaliated by excluding him from meetings and moving him from the 787 program to the company’s 777 program. .
Boeing last week declined to comment on the specific allegations, citing the FAA’s ongoing whistleblower investigation, but said in a statement that “retaliation is strictly prohibited at Boeing.”
The company is scheduled to report quarterly results on April 24, when it will face questions from investors about aircraft safety, production rates and FAA oversight.
