Boeing whistleblower doubles down on claims saying 787s should be grounded fearing ‘fatal flaws’ will cause plane to fall apart midair as he prepares to testify at senate hearing today

Boeing whistleblower Sam Salehpour told NBC News’ Tom Costello in a shocking interview that Boeing’s controversial 787 jets should be grounded because of “fatal flaws” that could cause the plane to break up in mid-air.

The interview, which aired Tuesday night, comes just a day before Salehpour heads to Congress to testify about his concerns about Boeing’s safety practices, specifically cracks caused by fatigue from planes flying thousands of hours.

Salehpour said that by coming forward in the media and before Congress he would save people’s lives. Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun has also been summoned, but it remains unclear whether he will attend.

This week, Steve Chisholm, Boeing’s chief mechanical and structural engineer, said researchers have found no fatigue cracks on in-service 787 jets that have undergone heavy maintenance.

The pair will answer questions about a series of safety incidents involving Boeing, most notably the blowout of a door plug that occurred on an Alaska Airlines flight in January.

The panel freed up space for an additional emergency door on the plane, which was operated by Alaska Airlines. Pilots were able to land safely and no injuries were reported.

Earlier this year, the longtime engineer laid out his allegations in a Federal Aviation Administration complaint.

Salehpour told Costello that the stress created by joining large pieces of the fuselage together to patch holes could cause “fatigue problems” in the air.

The result would be that “the plane falls apart at the joints…once you fall apart, you sink all the way to the ground.” Asked if he felt the plane might fall apart in mid-air, Salehpour replied: “Absolutely.”

“As far as I’m concerned, the entire fleet needs global attention,” he continued about the 787.

“And the focus is that you have to check your gaps and make sure that you don’t have the opportunity for premature failure,” Salehpour continued.

In addition to his structural concerns, Salehpour said he faced retaliation, such as threats and exclusion from meetings, after identifying technical issues affecting the structural integrity of the jets, and alleging that Boeing used shortcuts to avoid bottlenecks during 787 assembly reduce, his lawyers said. .

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 there were shims that were not the correct size and that some aircraft had areas that did not meet skin flatness specifications. A shim is a thin piece of material used to fill small gaps in a manufactured product.

Salehpour observed shortcuts used by Boeing to reduce bottlenecks during the 787 assembly process, which “placed excessive pressure on joints on large aircraft, and embedded drilling waste between key joints on more than 1,000 aircraft,” his lawyers said.

He told reporters last week that he saw problems with misalignment in production of the 777 widebody jet, which were corrected by using force.

“I literally saw people jumping on the pieces of the plane trying to line them up,” he said.

Two senior Boeing officials said Monday that there was no airframe fatigue among the nearly 700 in-service Dreamliner jets that have undergone tough maintenance inspections after six and 12 years.

“All of these results have been shared with the FAA,” Steve Chisholm said.

The 787, launched in 2004, had a specification of five-thousandths of an inch of space within a five-inch area, or “the thickness of a human hair,” said Lisa Fahl, vice president of aircraft programs for Boeing Commercial Airplanes. engineering.

She said reports of workers jumping on plane parts were “not part of our process.”

Salehpour’s attorney, Debra Katz, said in an emailed statement to Reuters that her client tried for years to see data that would address his safety concerns about holes in the 787.

“All data provided by Boeing must be validated by independent experts and the FAA before being taken at face value,” Katz said.

The Federal Aviation Administration has also been investigating Salehpour’s allegations since February, according to the subcommittee.

Salehpour, whose concerns were addressed in a Article from the New York Times last week is also expected to detail the retaliation he faced after raising his concerns.

According to that account, Salehpour was working on the 787 but became concerned about changes in the assembly of the fuselage, the main body of the aircraft.

That process involves assembling and attaching giant sections of the fuselage, each produced by a different company, according to Salehpour’s story.

Salehpour told the Times he believed Boeing took shortcuts that led to excessive force in the assembly process, causing deformations in the composite material used in the plane’s outer skin.

Such composites often consist of plastic layers reinforced by a carbon or glass fiber mesh, which increases tensile strength and makes them a useful alternative to heavier metals.

But composites can lose these benefits if they are twisted or otherwise deformed. Salehpour claimed that such problems could lead to increased material fatigue, potentially leading to premature failure of the composite, according to the Times report.

The subsequent discovery by accident investigators of missing bolts intended to secure the panel to the door panel rocked Boeing, which once had an enviable safety culture.

Alaska Airlines and United Airlines – the two US airlines that fly the Max 9 – also reported finding loose bolts and other hardware in other panels, indicating that quality problems with the door plugs were not limited to one aircraft.

Both the 787 and 737 Max were plagued by production defects that sporadically held up deliveries and left airlines without planes during peak travel seasons.