Boeing ‘warned about problems’
A former senior manager at Boeing says he repeatedly warned company executives about production problems at the factory where 737 Max jets were being built, but his recommendations to shut down production were rebuffed.
Edward Pierson, who was a senior manager at Boeing’s Renton, Washington factory, said a push to increase production of the 737 Max from 47 a month to 52 created a ‘‘factory in chaos’’.
Employees were working seven days, overtime had more than doubled, and in some cases, Pierson said, employees were doing jobs for which they had no training.
‘‘The factory did not have enough skilled employees, specifically mechanics, electricians and technicians, to keep up with the backlog of work,’’ Pierson told a hearing before the House transportation committee yesterday. ‘‘I witnessed numerous instances where manufacturing employees failed to communicate effectively between shifts, often leaving crews to wonder what work was properly completed.’’
Pierson is one of several witnesses expected to testify before the House committee investigating two 737 Max crashes that killed 346 people. The crashes, less than five months apart, have led to intense scrutiny of Boeing, its relationship with the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and the process by which the aircraft was certified.
A former Boeing factory manager says a push to increase production of the 737 Max jet created a ‘‘factory in chaos’’.
Edward Pierson
The concerns raised by Pierson involve the production of the Max and not the plane’s Manoeuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), the automated flight control system implicated in both crashes. Boeing has been working for several months on a software fix for the system.
Pierson, who retired from Boeing last year, said he agreed that the MCAS must be fixed, but was concerned that the focus on MCAS might prevent investigators
from thoroughly examining other factors that could have played a role in the crashes.
A Boeing spokesman said company officials were aware of Pierson’s concerns about production, discussed them in detail and took ‘‘appropriate steps to assess them’’.
However, Oregon Democratic Congressman Peter DeFaizo, the committee’s chairman, said Pierson’s account and that of other whistleblowers who had come forward, and the problems the committee had uncovered with the Max and Boeing’s other planes, demonstrated how the company’s safety culture had been ‘‘significantly eroded’’.
An FAA spokesman declined to say whether the agency’s inspectors found problems at Boeing’s factories similar to those pointed out by Pierson. –AP
‘‘The factory did not have enough skilled employees.’’