"Dangerous Manufacturing...": Boeing Whistleblower To NDTV On Air India Crash
Ed Pierson - the ex-high-level Boeing manager-turned-whistleblower, who testified before the United States Congress in 2019 that he had flagged safety issues with the company's 737 Max variant - has told NDTV of "chaotic and dangerous manufacturing" at its production facilities.
This comes amid scrutiny over the horrific crash of Air India's AI-171, a London-bound flight that lost thrust and slammed into a residential area in Gujarat's Ahmedabad 36 seconds after take-off.
Flight AI-171 was a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner. It was the first crash involving a 787 since 2009, but it has turned the spotlight back on long-standing concerns about Dreamliner manufacturing standards and on John Barnett, a whistleblower who died under mysterious circumstances last year.
It also brings the focus back on Sam Salehpour, another Boeing whistleblower who accused the company of putting profit over safety, and retaliating against his publicly raising red flags.
"That's right... during testimony (to the US Congress in April last year) Mr Salehpour, who is the engineer with Boeing who reported problems, i.e., structural issues, and he provided pretty startling information about employees forcing parts to fit together (by jumping on them, according to some whistleblowers) when you aren't supposed to force them together..."
"... and he expressed concern and apparently did everything he could, from inside the company, to raise these concerns and wasn't getting an adequate response," Mr Pierson told NDTV.
"So he felt it was necessary to become a whistleblower."
In April last year Mr Salehpour, who spent nearly two decades at Boeing, told US lawmakers he had been "put through hell" for raising concerns about the manufacturing processes.
Among specifics flagged by Mr Salehpour were structural problems in the Dreamliner's fuselage; he claimed small gaps and improper assembly could cause possible structural failure.
Boeing had strongly disputed the whistleblowers' claims, including those by Mr Salehpour, sand said the Dreamliner had been put through 150,000 safety tests and audits. It also denied retaliating against the whistleblowers after many, including Sam Salehpour, alleged retribution.
The Federal Aviation Administration, the United States' top aviation authority, launched an investigation based on Mr Salehpour's claims. The FAA cleared in-operation 787 planes.
On Wednesday, hours after the Air India plane crash, American officials continued to state there was no immediate safety data that required halting of Boeing 787 flights in the US.
READ | US Aviation Body Says New Problem In Undelivered 787 Dreamliners
Asked if the concerns flagged by Mr Salehpour could have been present, or indeed, contributed to the horrifying Air India crash, Mr Pierson told NDTV "it is possible..."
"... concerns raised by Mr Salehpour could have been present in the Air India plane," he said, pointing out, "The problems he identified.. apparently the planes were being bult like that for a long time."
On his own whistleblowing - regarding the 737 Max planes - Mr Pierson said there were multiple indicators of "chaotic and dangerous manufacturing" at the company.
A grounded Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 at Los Angeles International Airport (File).
"We were rushing to build planes... employees were under pressure to do overtime... there were parts issues, aircraft systems issues, functional system testing and electrical system testing, in particular..."
The AI-171 plane crash is being investigated by Indian authorities; flight AI-171's black box has been recovered and the voice and systems data it contains is being analysed.
The government has also set up a high-level committee to inquire into the accident and suggest guidelines to reinforce the safety of planes and passengers.
Information available at this time only shows the plane lost thrust seconds after take-off.
The Air India plane fell on a students' hostel near Ahmedabad airport.
The pilots sent a distress radio message to Ahmedabad Air Traffic Control between 1.39 and 1.40 am, the government has said, but did not then respond to the ATC hailing the doomed plane.
All but one of the 242 people on board were killed; the lone survivor was a British-Indian man sitting in seat 11A, and at least 31 deaths have been confirmed on the ground, taking the total dead to 274.
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