HIGH TURBULENCE
Series of worker incidents plague Boeing
Boeing whistleblower John Barnett was found dead in his car with a gunshot wound to his head on the same day he was due to testify against the aircraft manufacturer.
The mysterious incident happened as the company’s stock has nose-dived, fueled by a series of incidents including a door plug that flew off a 737 MAX 9 operated by Alaska Airlines at 16,000 feet on Jan. 5 and a wheel falling off a 777 jet a few weeks later.
This led the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to investigate and discover “unacceptable” quality control issues.
While Barnett’s death has raised many eyebrows, it is far from the first incident involving the company’s workers.
Here we take a look back at some of Boeing’s biggest scandals.
2008: A disgruntled worker at a Boeing plant told a court that he cut about 70 electrical wires on a $24 million Chinook military helicopter because he was upset about a job transfer.
Matthew Montgomery, 33, pleaded guilty to one count of destroying property under contract to the government.
According to federal prosecutors, Montgomery was working his last shift on the Chinook assembly line May 10, 2008, when he severed about 70 electrical wires running together from the cockpit to the main body of an H-47 Chinook. He was later sentenced to five months in prison and five months in home confinement.
2011: Almost two dozen past and then-current employees were arrested in a drug bust at a Boeing plant that makes military aircraft in Pennsylvania, with the charges including selling Oxycontin and fentanyl, officials said.
In a major sting, FBI and Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) agents uncovered the illegal prescription drug distribution ring at the Ridley Park-based factory, leading to indictments against 23 individuals, a joint statement from the agencies said.
“The defendants in this case are accused of diverting controlled substances and selling them to alleged abusers without any medical supervision,” said DEA acting special agent in charge, Vito Guarino, in 2011.
The drugs were being sold on site at the facility, which builds aircraft including the H-47 Chinook helicopter and the V-22 Osprey.
2014: In a damning 2014 video clip, several Boeing employees claimed colleagues were on hard drugs including cocaine and meth while they worked, and raised concerns about the safety of the 787 Dreamliner aircrafts.
Current and retired Boeing employees discussed their worries about quality control with news service Al Jazeera’s investigative TV segment “Broken Dreams: The Boeing 787.”
2022: Boeing’s failure to act after learning two of its employees were involved in a love triangle with their supervisor resulted in one of the employees murdering his co-worker, according to a lawsuit filed in 2022.
The estate of former Boeing employee Isaiah Washington, 28, filed the Boeing negligence lawsuit after he was fatally shot on the street by co-worker Ralph O’Connor, 44, who then killed himself.
In January, the company argued the employees were not on the clock when the murder occurred, in a bid to have the case tossed.
2024: The FAA’s six-week audit of Boeing’s 737 MAX manufacturing processes faulted numerous company processes, including mechanics at one of its key suppliers using a hotel key card and dish soap as makeshift tools to test compliance, according to a report.
The FAA discovered “unacceptable” quality control issues during an audit of Boeing and supplier Spirit Aero-Systems that was launched after the door plug flew off the 737 MAX 9.
Boeing failed 33 out of 89 product audits — a review of specific aspects in the production line — with a total of 97 counts of alleged noncompliance, the auditors found.
Last Tuesday, the company revealed it is adding weekly compliance checks for every 737 work area and additional audits of equipment to reduce quality problems.