Boeing whistleblowers testify on Capitol Hill
WASHINGTON (NEXSTAR) – Lawmakers on Capitol Hill heard from Boeing whistleblowers Wednesday who say the company’s safety failures could put airplane passengers at risk.
Boeing whistleblower, engineer Sam Salehpour, told senators he’s seen shoddy manufacturing firsthand.
“I literally saw people jumping on the pieces of the airplane to get them to align,” Salehpour said.
Salehpour alleges the company used unsafe techniques to ramp up production.
“This may result in premature fatigue failure. Effectively, they are putting out defective airplanes,” Salehpour said.
But Salehpour said his concerns have been ignored by higher-ups.
“I was told to shut up. I received physical threats,” Salehpour said.
Boeing has denied the allegations and said it promotes quality and safety. But Javier de Luis says there can be a disconnect between what management says and what employees hear.
“They hear ‘safety is our number one priority’, but what they see is that that’s only true as long as your production milestones are met and at that point it’s ‘push it out the door as fast as you can,'” de Luis said.
De Luis is an aerospace engineer who helped write a report about Boeing’s safety culture, and he has a personal interest. His sister died in the crash of a Boeing 737 Max 8.
The hearings come just months after a door panel blew off a Boeing jet during an Alaska Airlines flight in January.
“The flying public is also acutely worried about why pieces of Boeing airplanes are falling from the sky,” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas.) said.
Senators say they want to give Americans confidence that they are safe in the air.
Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall says he suspects the blame goes beyond Boeing.
“It feels like the FAA and the DOT has dropped the ball as well here,” Marshall said.
Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson said he wants to hear from airlines and pilots about the problems, too.
“This needs to be an in-depth investigation. There’s a lot of elements to this thing,” Johnson said.
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