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Business & Economy
Business & Economy
The Big Story
Whistleblower details alleged retaliation from Boeing
A Boeing whistleblower told a Senate committee Wednesday that he was silenced and threatened after raising concerns with the airline giant’s manufacturing process.
© Greg Nash
Sam Salehpour, a quality engineer at Boeing, alleged the company retaliated against him after he reported that portions of the body of the company’s 787 Dreamliners were not being fused together properly.
“In a rush to address the bottlenecks in production, Boeing hit problems, putting pieces together with excessive force to make them appear that the gaps don’t exist even though they exist,” Salehpour told the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
“The gap didn’t actually go away, and this may result in premature fatigue failure. Effectively, they are putting out defective airplanes,” Saleh added.
After repeatedly raising the manufacturing issue to his bosses at Boeing, Salehpour says he was isolated, transferred and threatened.
“I want to make clear that I have raised these issues over three years. I was ignored. I was told not to create delays. I was told frankly to shut up,” Salehpour said.
The new allegations come as Boeing faces multiple investigations from regulators and lawmakers after the door plug of a 737 Max 9 plane blew off shortly after an Alaska Airlines flight took off on Jan. 5.
The subcommittee also invited Boeing CEO David Calhoun to testify Wednesday, but he did not attend.
When Sen. Roger Marshall (R-Kan.) asked if he thought there was a culture of retaliation at Boeing, Salehpour said “absolutely.”
Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.), who chairs the Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Subcommittee on Investigations, held up a photo of a tire punctured by a bolt during his opening remarks. He said Salehpour provided this as an example of the retaliation and threats he faced.
While Salehpour made it clear he has no concrete proof that someone at Boeing punctured the tire, he said he believes it happened while he was at work and that when he had the tire replaced, he was told the bolt was not picked up through “normal driving.”
Salehpour also said his boss told him he would have “killed someone” who said what he said in a meeting, and called him incessantly on his personal phone.
He also said he was blocked from documenting issues and sharing information with subject matter experts.
“There are mounting, serious allegations that Boeing has a broken safety culture and a set of practices that are unacceptable,” Blumenthal said.
The Hill’s Taylor Giorno has more here.
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