Boeing tries to defuse the long-haul crisis

“I'm taking a professional risk, but I'm testifying because I don't want to see a 777 and 787 crash.” It was with these words that Sam Salehpour, a quality engineer at Boeing for seventeen years, began his hearing under oath before the United States Senate. In a hearing whose title sets the tone: “Examining Boeing’s Broken Safety Culture: Eyewitness Accounts.” »

The commission heard from four engineers, employees and former employees of Boeing and the American Aviation Safety Agency (FAA), whose testimonies all point in the same direction: according to them, Boeing does not produce its planes to the standards of quality and safety required in aeronautics. Which “endangers the safety of passengers”, summarizes one of the two senators who chair the Senate commission of inquiry.

These four whistleblowers “are not the only ones to have contacted us. I invite everyone at Boeing, the FAA or the airlines to contact us,” says Senator (Democrat) Richard Blumenthal. The latter wants to hear from David Calhoun, CEO of Boeing since 2020. “He will have to explain to us why the promises to improve safety and quality made five years ago (after the two deadly 737 Max crashes in 2019 and 2019 , Editor’s note) were not kept,” he announces. As proven by the serious incident on board an Alaska Airlines flight on January 5, during which a door came loose from the fuselage of a Max 9. The investigation showed that the mounting bolts of this door, dismantled for work, had not been put back in place by Boeing workers.

“Boeing’s entire safety culture must be reviewed and restored. The nine recent audits carried out by the FAA on production and quality control methods were not good, basic defects were noted in the manufacturing of fuselages,” lists the senator, evoking a toxic culture, made of threats, pressure and hostility against employees reporting faulty workmanship. In the background are the investigations and audits now extended to both long-haul aircraft, in addition to the 737 Max. Three of Boeing's four airliners (the 767 escapes) are now in the sights of the FAA, the National Transportation Security Office and the FBI.

And Sam Salehpour drives the point home: Boeing “repeatedly” and “for three years” ignored its warnings about quality defects in the long-haul assembly process. The fuselage sections of the 787 “are not properly “attached” together and could separate in mid-flight, after having made thousands of flights,” he believes. The engineer also points to “shortcuts” in the assembly of the Dreamliner, which would have caused “deformation of the composite materials which could alter the resistance to wear in the long term”. He also cites “debris falling between parts in 80% of cases, the gaps of which are not measured correctly in 97.7% of cases”.

“I literally saw people jumping on the parts of the plane to align them,” assures the engineer, referring to the new assembly procedures for the 777, a plane put into service in 1995. These procedures were, according to him, applied, “without carrying out the necessary redesign of the parts concerned, which resulted in poor alignment between them”. Ed Pierson, former Navy and former Boeing executive, does not have harsh enough words to denounce a collective bankruptcy: of the manufacturer but also of the authorities responsible for controlling it. “The dysfunctional safety culture has not changed. Nothing was done. Anyone who boards a Boeing takes a risk,” he concludes.

Faced with these testimonies, Boeing tries to reassure. He calls these allegations “inaccurate” and reaffirms his confidence in the safety of the 787 and 777. “Jumping on airplane parts is not part of our procedures,” assures Lisa Fahl, program engineering director at Boeing Aviation. commercial. The manufacturer explains that it has carried out thousands of tests which show that the 787 and 777 meet safety criteria. However, it is proven that of the 1,123 Dreamliners delivered since 2011, those received by the companies before 2020, i.e. 939 aircraft, presented defects. The first problem identified showed greater spacing than tolerated by Boeing specifications between the edges of the fuselage sections and the straps (all of which were dismantled and checked) to connect them. “Our spacing specification is equivalent to the thickness of a human hair,” emphasizes Lisa Fahl. The discrepancy noted did not call into question flight safety, according to her.

Deliveries of the 787 were, however, suspended between November 2020 and March 2021. After the identification of new defects, deliveries of 120 aircraft were frozen from May 2021 to August 2022. “We still have 40 Dreamliners to check, in particular the joints between fuselage sections,” says Steve Chisholm, chief mechanical and structural engineer.

Concerning the integrity of the 787 fuselages, Boeing has carried out thousands of tests. Premature wear can cause cracks, called “cracking,” which can widen and ultimately threaten the structure. “We subjected the composite of the 787 fuselage to fatigue tests representing 165,000 cycles (one cycle represents takeoff, flight and landing, Editor's note), or four times more than the cycles that a 787 will perform during its lifespan. its exploitation. We found no signs of wear but on the contrary a 75% improvement in resistance compared to the aluminum used for other aircraft,” explains Steve Chisholm. As for the six-year maintenance operations (after entry into service) carried out on 671 long-haul aircraft, as well as those for the twelve years (a heavier inspection) carried out on 8 aircraft, they showed “no sign of fatigue of structure”.

The fact remains that the pressure and mistrust have gone up a notch. Boeing must very quickly show that it is changing. In February, the FAA gave it 90 days to submit an action plan aimed at resolving the quality problems. Failing this, new measures could be taken. Some observers do not rule out a total shutdown of production. A disaster scenario that Boeing still has a month to avoid…