NEW YORK: Witnesses at a US Senate hearing on Boeing drew a disturbing picture on Wednesday (Apr 17) of an aviation giant that blows off safety questions and sidelines critics as it chases faster production and bigger profits.
“The attitude from Boeing from the highest level is just to push the defective parts, regardless of what it is,” Boeing engineer Sam Salehpour told lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
Salehpour, who has worked at Boeing for 17 of his 40 years in aerospace, said he became a whistleblower after he was punished for raising safety questions about the top-selling 787 Dreamliner and 777.
He testified that he was blackballed by company higher-ups and feared for his personal well-being after raising safety concerns.
He maintains that the Dreamliner could show premature signs of fatigue, resulting in a catastrophic accident because of excessively large gaps in the plane’s assembly. He likened it to a paper clip that is bent repeatedly.
“You do it once or twice, it doesn’t break, but it breaks at some time,” said Salehpour, who has said the entire 787 fleet should be grounded for investigation.
The hearing comes as regulators escalate scrutiny of Boeing in the wake of a near-disastrous Jan 5 Alaska Airlines flight, in which a 737 MAX was forced to make an emergency landing after a fuselage panel blew out in mid-flight.
The incident revived major questions about Boeing’s safety practices that had initially arisen following two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019, but which had subsided following a lengthy grounding of the 737 MAX.
