Boeing whistleblower calls for ‘criminal investigation’ into aviation firm because its planes are ‘not safe’ as airline prepares to tell regulators in the US how it will fix safety problems

A Boeing whistleblower has called for a criminal investigation into the beleaguered company because its “planes are not safe.”

The troubled jet company has been given a deadline of today to submit its plans to federal regulators the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on how it will fix safety problems plaguing some of its planes.

Former senior manager at Boeing Ed Pierson says there have been too many mistakes with the planes.

The executive director of the Foundation of Aviation Safety has called on authorities to launch a criminal investigation after issuing a disturbing warning: ‘These planes are not safe. They are still not safe.”

The FAA told Boeing to present its recovery plan after an Alaska Airlines plane suffered a flapping door mid-flight at 16,000 feet in January.

The company has been in crisis mode since a door plug panel blew off a 737 Max plane during an Alaska Airlines flight in January, seen here

The missing emergency door of Alaska Airlines N704AL, which made an emergency landing at Portland International Airport on January 5

No one was injured during the mid-air incident. Accident investigators determined that the bolts that secure the panel to the frame of the Boeing 737 Max 9 were missing before the piece blew off.

The accident further damaged Boeing’s reputation and led to multiple civil and criminal investigations.

Now Mr Pierson has suggested that Boeing may have failed to meet the FAA’s deadline and requested an extension after the company was told to draw up a recovery plan following the eruption.

Mr Peirson told BBC Radio 4 this morning that action is needed rather than words.

He said: ‘What really needs to happen, as we have said before, is there needs to be a full criminal investigation because these planes are not safe. They are still not safe.”

The whistleblower has yet to be convinced by the FAA’s promise that it will “not be back to business as usual” for Boeing as it pledged to “continue aggressive oversight of the company.”

In late February, FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker gave Boeing 90 days to come up with a plan to improve quality and address the agency’s safety concerns. Whitaker described the plan as the beginning, not the end, of a process to improve Boeing.

“It’s going to be a long road to get Boeing back where they need to be: making safe airplanes,” he told ABC News last week.

This photo taken at Tanjung Priok Port in Jakarta on October 30, 2018, shows Indonesian people examining the rubble of the ill-fated Lion Air flight JT 610 in Jakarta, which killed 189 people.

Rescuers work at the scene of an Ethiopia Airlines flight from a Boeing 737 Max 8 plane crash near Bishoftu, or Debre Zeit, south of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on March 11, 2019, that killed 157 people

A photo shows debris from the crashed Ethiopia Airlines plane near Bishoftu, a town about 60 kilometers southeast of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, on March 11, 2019

Indonesian Navy divers hold wreckage from Sriwijaya Air flight SJY182 during a sea search and rescue operation near Lancang Island on January 10, 2021

Rescuers bring up one of the engines recovered from the Sriwijaya Air flight crash site at Jakarta port on January 10, 2021

Asked whether he felt he would be listened to in the future if he raised issues about the company, Mr Pierson said: “It’s going to take a lot of work and I’ve heard a lot of broken promises, so until we see action that actually matches the words.

“We had an emergency last week. Another Max Air plane made an emergency landing in Denver due to an electrical engine failure. We have seen many. We have to stop and do the job right.”

Earlier this month, a new investigation was opened by the regulator after Boeing’s astonishing admissions staff may have skipped some inspections of its 787 Dreamliner planes.

The FAA added that it was investigating “whether Boeing completed inspections and whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records.”

The Wall Street Journal obtained internal communications from Scott Stock, Boeing’s 787 program chief, on April 29. Stock said the company found no “immediate flight safety issue” for any of the Dreamliners currently in service.

Boeing whistleblower Sam Salehpour testified on Capitol Hill in April about safety problems in the company’s planes, particularly the 787 models.

Salehpour claimed prior to his testimony that he “literally saw people jumping on the pieces of the plane trying to get them to line up.”

A Boeing 737 Max operated by United Airlines veered off the tarmac into the grass as it left the runway at George Bush Airport in Houston in March.

CEO David Calhoun, who will step down at the end of this year, has often said Boeing is taking steps to improve production quality and safety culture

Boeing has categorically denied Salehpour’s claims regarding people jumping on planes.

Steve Chisholm, Boeing’s chief engineer, defended the planes in April, saying researchers have found no fatigue cracks on in-service 787 jets that have undergone heavy maintenance.

Yet the 787 aircraft has a history of serious problems, even though Boeing is currently confident in its structural integrity.

Boeing halted deliveries of the 787 widebody jet for more than a year until August 2022 as the FAA investigated quality issues and manufacturing defects.

In 2021, Boeing said the planes had shims that were not the correct size and that some planes had areas that did not meet skin flatness specifications. A shim is a thin piece of material used to fill small holes in a manufactured product.

The 737 Max, a narrow-body jet, has also had its fair share of close calls in the sky.

A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 had to make an emergency landing at Denver International Airport in early April after part of its engine blew off.

In March, an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 landed in Portland with its cargo door ajar. Passengers’ luggage and pets were downstairs, but Boeing said no damage was caused to the animals.

The company could also face criminal charges over two fatal 737 Max crashes after Boeing was accused of violating a settlement that allowed them to avoid previous charges.

Pictured: Boeing engineer Sam Salehpour testifies before the U.S. Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Investigations on April 17

The Justice Department must decide by July 7 whether to pursue charges, amid increasing scrutiny over the safety of the company’s planes.

Boeing reached a $2.5 billion settlement with the Justice Department in January 2021 after two 737 Max jets crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people.

Mr. Pierson told the LA Times earlier this year that he would “absolutely not fly on a Max plane” after the Alaska Airlines blowout.

“I worked at the factory where they were built, and I saw the pressure that workers faced to get the planes out the door,” he explained at the time.

Adding: ‘I tried to disable them before the first crash.’