Boeing whistleblower Sam Salehpour told NBC News’ Tom Costello in a shocking interview that Boeing’s controversial 787s should be grounded due to “deadly defects” that could cause the plane to collapse. plane in flight.
The interview, which aired Tuesday night on NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt, comes just a day before Salehpour is due to go to Congress to testify about his concerns about Boeing’s safety practices, particularly fatigue cracks resulting from thousands of hours of aircraft flight.
Salehpour said that by coming forward in the media and before Congress, he would save lives. Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun has also been summoned, but it is unclear whether he will attend.
This week, Steve Chisholm, Boeing’s chief engineer for mechanical and structural engineering, said investigators found no fatigue cracks on in-service 787 planes that had undergone intensive maintenance.
Both men are expected to answer questions about a series of safety incidents involving Boeing, including a burst door jam on an Alaska Airlines flight in January.
The panel filled a gap left for an additional emergency door on the jet, operated by Alaska Airlines. The pilots were able to land safely and there were no injuries.
Earlier this year, the longtime engineer laid out his allegations in a complaint filed by the Federal Aviation Administration.
The interview, which aired Tuesday evening, comes just a day before Sam Salehpour is due to go to Congress to testify about his concerns about Boeing’s safety practices.
Salehpour said he believes the stress caused by aggressively attaching parts could cause a plane to fall mid-flight.
Salehpour previously said that rather than taking his problems seriously, Boeing retaliated against him, which the company denies.
A door jam exploded in midair on an Alaska Airlines flight on January 7, 2024 in Portland, Oregon
Pictured: Outgoing Boeing CEO David Calhoun speaking to reporters weeks after a Boeing 737 door jam exploded.
Salehpour told Costello that the stress created by attaching large pieces of the fuselage, in order to fill gaps, could cause “fatigue failure” in flight.
The result would see “the plane collapse at the joints… once you collapse, you’re going to go all the way down to the ground.” Asked if he thought the plane might collapse in mid-air, Salehpour said: “Absolutely.”
“As far as I’m concerned, the entire global fleet needs attention right now,” he continued of the 787.
“And the attention is that you have to check your gaps and make sure that there is no risk of 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 problems affecting the structural integrity of the planes, and claiming that Boeing had taken shortcuts to reduce bottlenecks in assembling the 787, its lawyers said. .
Boeing halted deliveries of the 787 widebody for more than a year, until August 2022, as the FAA investigated quality issues and manufacturing defects.
In 2021, Boeing said the wedges were the wrong 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 tiny gaps in a manufactured product.
Pictured: Boeing whistleblower John Barnett found dead in March after apparent suicide
Salehpour observed shortcuts used by Boeing to reduce bottlenecks during the 787 assembly process, which placed “undue stress on key aircraft joints and embedded drilling debris between key joints of more than 1,000 planes,” his lawyers said.
He told reporters last week that he had seen misalignment problems in production of the 777 widebody aircraft, which had been resolved through the use of force.
“I literally saw people jumping on the parts of the plane to line them up,” he said.
Two senior Boeing officials said Monday that there were no findings of airframe fatigue among the nearly 700 in-service Dreamliner jets that have undergone heavy maintenance inspections after six years and 12 years.
“All of these results have been shared with the FAA,” Steve Chisholm said.
The 787, which launched in 2004, had a spacing specification of five thousandths of an inch in a five-inch area, or “the thickness of a human hair,” said Lisa Fahl, vice president of programs aircraft from Boeing Commercial Airplanes. engineering.
She said reports of workers jumping on plane parts “were not part of our process.”
Salehpour’s lawyer, Debra Katz, said in an emailed statement to Reuters that her client had been trying for years to obtain data that would address his concerns about the safety of the 787’s shortcomings.
“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 raised in a New York Times article last week, is also expected to describe the retaliation he faced after raising his concerns.
According to this account, Salehpour worked on the 787 but became alarmed by changes to the fuselage assembly, the main body of the plane.
This process involves assembling and attaching giant sections of the fuselage, each produced by a different company, according to Salehpour’s account.
Salehpour told the Times that he believed Boeing was taking shortcuts that led to excessive force in the assembly process, creating deformations in the composite material used in the plane’s outer skin.
Such composites are often made of layers of plastic reinforced with a mesh of carbon or glass fibers, increasing tensile strength and making them a useful substitute for heavier metals.
But composites can lose these benefits if they are twisted or warped. Salehpour alleged that such problems could create increased material fatigue, possibly leading to premature failure of the composite, according to the Times story.
The subsequent discovery by crash investigators of missing bolts intended to secure the panel to the door panel in January shook Boeing, which once boasted an enviable safety culture.
Alaska Airlines and United Airlines – the two US carriers that operate the Max 9 – have also reported finding loose bolts and other items in other panels, suggesting that quality issues with the door plugs are not occurring. were not limited to a single aircraft.
Both the 787 and 737 Max have been plagued by production defects that have sporadically delayed deliveries and left airlines short of planes during busy travel seasons.
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