“
I'm taking a professional risk, but I'm testifying because I don't want to see a 777 and 787 crash.
”
It was with these words that Sam Salehpour, a quality engineer at Boeing for seventeen years, began his hearing under oath before the United States Senate. In a hearing whose title sets the tone: "Examining Boeing's Broken Safety Culture: Accounts from First-Time Witnesses." »
The commission heard from four engineers, employees and former employees of Boeing and the American Aviation Safety Agency (FAA), whose testimonies all point in the same direction: according to them, Boeing does not produce its planes to the standards of quality and safety required in aeronautics. Which
“
endangers the safety of passengers
”,
summarizes one of the two senators who chair the Senate commission of inquiry.
These four whistleblowers
“
are not the only ones to have contacted us. I invite everyone at Boeing, the FAA or the airlines to contact us
,”
said Senator (Democrat) Richard Blumenthal. The latter wants to hear from David Calhoun, CEO of Boeing since 2020.
“
He will have to explain to us why the promises to improve safety and quality made five years ago
(after the two deadly 737 Max crashes in 2019 and 2019 , Editor’s note)
were not kept
,”
he announces. As proven by the serious incident on board an Alaska Airlines flight on January 5, during which a door came loose from the fuselage of a Max 9. The investigation showed that the mounting bolts of this door, dismantled for work, had not been put back in place by Boeing workers.
"Nothing was done"
“
Boeing’s entire safety culture must be reviewed and restored. The nine recent audits carried out by the FAA on production and quality control methods were not good, basic defects were noted in the manufacturing of fuselages
,”
lists the senator, evoking a toxic culture, made of threats, pressure and hostility against employees reporting faulty workmanship. In the background are the investigations and audits now extended to both long-haul aircraft, in addition to the 737 Max. Three of Boeing's four airliners (the 767 escapes) are now in the sights of the FAA, the National Transportation Security Office and the FBI.
Boeing's entire safety culture must be reviewed and restored. The nine recent audits conducted by the FAA on production methods and quality control were not good, basic defects were found in the manufacture of the fuselages
Richard Blumenthal, senator
And Sam Salehpour drives home the point: Boeing ignored
“
repeatedly
”
and
“
for three years
”
its warnings about quality defects in the long-haul assembly process. The fuselage sections of the 787
“
are not properly “attached” together and could separate in mid-flight, after having made thousands of flights
,”
he believes. The engineer also points to
“
shortcuts
”
in the assembly of the Dreamliner, which would have caused
“
deformation of the composite materials which could alter resistance to wear in the long term
”.
He also cites
“
debris falling between parts in 80
% of cases, the gaps of which are not measured correctly in 97.7
% of cases
”.
“
I literally saw people jumping on the parts of the plane to align them ,
”
assures the engineer, referring to the new assembly procedures for the 777, a plane put into service in 1995. These procedures were, according to him, applied,
“
without carrying out the necessary redesign of the parts concerned, which resulted in poor alignment between them
”.
Ed Pierson, formerly of the Navy and former Boeing executive, does not have harsh enough words to denounce a collective bankruptcy: of the manufacturer but also of the authorities responsible for controlling it.
“
The dysfunctional safety culture has not changed. Nothing was done. Anyone who boards a Boeing is taking a risk
,”
he concludes.
Pressure and distrust
Faced with these testimonies, Boeing tries to reassure. He calls these allegations
“
inaccurate
”
and reaffirms his confidence in the safety of the 787 and 777.
“
Jumping on airplane parts is not part of our procedures
,”
assures Lisa Fahl, director of program engineering at Boeing Aviation. commercial. The manufacturer explains that it has carried out thousands of tests which show that the 787 and 777 meet safety criteria. However, it is proven that of the 1,123 Dreamliners delivered since 2011, those received by the companies before 2020, i.e. 939 aircraft, presented defects. The first problem identified showed greater spacing than tolerated by Boeing specifications between the edges of the fuselage sections and the straps (all of which were dismantled and checked) to connect them.
“
Our spacing specification is equivalent to the thickness of a human hair
,”
emphasizes Lisa Fahl. The discrepancy noted did not call into question flight safety, according to her.
Deliveries of the 787 were, however, suspended between November 2020 and March 2021. After the identification of new defects, deliveries of 120 aircraft were frozen from May 2021 to August 2022.
“
We still have 40
Dreamliners to check, in particular the joints between fuselage sections
,”
says Steve Chisholm, chief mechanical and structural engineer.
In February, the FAA gave Boeing 90 days to submit an action plan aimed at resolving the quality problems. Otherwise, new measures could be taken
Concerning the integrity of the 787 fuselages, Boeing has carried out thousands of tests. Premature wear can cause cracks, called “cracking,” which can widen and ultimately threaten the structure.
“
We subjected the composite of the 787 fuselage to fatigue tests representing 165,000
cycles
(one cycle represents takeoff, flight and landing, Editor's note),
or four times more than the cycles that a 787 will perform during its lifespan. its exploitation. We found no signs of wear but on the contrary a 75
% improvement in resistance compared to the aluminum used for other aircraft
,”
explains Steve Chisholm. As for the six-year maintenance operations (after entry into service) carried out on 671 long-haul aircraft, as well as those of the twelve years (a heavier inspection) carried out on 8 aircraft, they showed
“
no sign of fatigue of structure
”.
The fact remains that the pressure and mistrust have gone up a notch. Boeing must very quickly show that it is changing. In February, the FAA gave it 90 days to submit an action plan aimed at resolving the quality problems. Failing this, new measures could be taken. Some observers do not rule out a total shutdown of production. A disaster scenario that Boeing still has a month to avoid…