Boeing faces bumpy ride on safety record
US Senate is investigating the aviation firm. By Simon Marks
Less than a month after Boeing announced a management shake-up that the aircraft manufacturer hoped would halt the tsunami of safety questions bedevilling it, it is already apparent that the strategy has not worked.
The announced departures later this year of chief executive Dave Calhoun (inset) and chairman Larry Kellner have not stemmed the tide. In fact, the predicament becomes graver by the day as Congress prepares to launch a fresh investigation into its conduct.
Last week’s revelation that a key supplier tested Vaseline, cornstarch and talcum powder as potential lubricants for a door-seal on troubled 737 Max 9 jets beggared belief in the minds of many travellers.
Spirit AeroSystems settled on “Dawn” – a popular American washing-up liquid – as the most effective solution. According to reports published by The New York Times, the firm then tested the efficacy of the door seal with a hotel room keycard. Both processes were approved by Boeing and documented for the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Spirit praised its employees for seeking “creative ways to make the process of building fuselages more efficient”. “People look at the hotel key card or Dawn soap and think this is sloppy,” said Spirit spokesman Joe Buccino. “This is actually an innovative approach to solving for an efficient shop aid.”
Boeing is now facing allegations regarding the construction of another jet: the 787 Dreamliner. The whistle-blower Sam Salehpour, a quality engineer who has worked for the company for four decades, told The New York Times that sections had been fastened together incorrectly – a fault could cause aircraft to age prematurely and ultimately break up in-flight.
His concerns are now the subject of an FAA investigation that threatens to up-end efforts to manufacture and market the fastest-selling widest body aircraft in history.
Mr Salehpour’s lawyers say that after he raised complaints with management, the company transferred him to work on the Boeing 777, where he claims he witnessed similar production violations.
In January, he lodged a whistleblower claim with the FAA, at which point his lawyers assert that Boeing threatened to fire him.
“Rather than heeding his warnings,” they said, “Boeing prioritised getting planes to market as quickly as possible, despite the known, well-substantiated issues Mr Salehpour raised.”
Boeing has denied Mr Salehpour’s claims and says it continues to encourage employees to voice any concerns they may have about production processes.
“We are fully confident in the 787 Dreamliner because of the comprehensive work done to ensure the quality and long-term safety of the aircraft,” the company said. It expressed similar confidence in the integrity of the 777.”
More than 1,100 Dreamliners are in use worldwide. British Airways, which purchased its first in 2013, describes it as “the mainstay of the airline’s long-haul fleet”. Air France operates 10 Dreamliners and more than 40 Boeing 777s.
Both models land regularly at Heathrow, Gatwick and other UK airports hosting long-haul flights.
Peter Lemme, who spent 16 years on Boeing’s avionics engineering team, claims the decline began with the development of the 787. “I got a chance to see that first-hand,” he told i. “I worked for a supplier that was building a major component.
“In earlier programmes, that group would have been staffed by say 20 or 30 Boeing engineers and they would have been directing the supplier… But on the 787… we only really worked with one engineer.
“And they asked us to write the specification for the system rather than writing the spec themselves and delivering it to us.”
Mr Lemme argues Boeing sought to transfer responsibilities for safety to competing suppliers to streamline manufacturing. “When they’re fiercely competitive, that really chills the dialogue,” he said.
Executives face more difficult days, with the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations due to hold a hearing on Mr Salehpour’s claims tomorrow.
The committee’s co-chairs have warned Mr Calhoun that the hearing will examine reports of “alarming and dangerous manufacturing deficiencies that ‘are creating potentially catastrophic safety risks’”.
The company says it is co-operating with the congressional inquiry. As its share price crashed last week to its lowest in over a year, it emerged that Mr Calhoun was awarded a 45 per cent pay rise last year, taking his package to $31.4m (£25.2m).