On Tuesday, a Boeing excellent engineer made damaging allegations that the jet-maker used keys to boost production rates, which resulted in serious structural problems on its 787 and 777 widebody planes.
The Boeing expert, Sam Salehpour, alleged that about 1, 000 787s and about 400 777s now flying are at risk of excessive stress destruction and structural failure.
On January 19, attorneys for Salehpour wrote a letter detailing his complaints to Mike Whitaker, mind of the Federal Aviation Administration. On Tuesday, the organization announced that it was looking into the allegations.
” We thoroughly research all health reports”, said FAA director Ian Gregor.
Salehpour may respond next week at a Senate reading convened by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D- Conn.,” to examine , Boeing’s broken health culture, focusing on firsthand accounts”.
Boeing said it is in discussions and may cooperate with Blumenthal’s committee and has “offered to deliver files, evidence, and professional briefings”.
Salehpour and his attorneys met for a digital media conference on Tuesday. According to his attorneys, files will be presented at the Senate reading to back up his claims.
Boeing, facing rising public concern about many health problems, responded with a detailed response to the 787 claims.
” We are totally confident in the 787 Dreamliner”, Boeing said. ” These claims about the structural integrity of the 787 are inaccurate”.
Boeing claimed that extensive tests and analysis, shared with the FAA, demonstrated that Salehpour’s issues “do not provide any security concerns and the plane will keep its service life over many decades.”
As for claims on the 777, Boeing said:  ,” We are totally convinced in the safety and durability of the 777 home. These states are inaccurate”.
Tiny cracks left vacant
Salehpour, an Iranian national who immigrated to the United States in 1973 to pursue a college education, claims to have worked in aviation engineering for 40 times. At Boeing, he’s worked since 2007 as a specialist and as a strong individual.
At the press conference, he declared,” I love this country, I love my work at Boeing, and I love the options I have been given.” ” I’m doing this because I want Boeing to achieve and stop collapses,” I said.
The reported deficiencies in the 787 Aircraft are related to the small spaces at the joins of the aircraft parts that Boeing discovered at the beginning of 2020. As Boeing worked to fix the defects, Boeing largely stopped deliveries for almost two years at a cost of$ 6.3 billion.
The FAA approved the Boeing design in August 2022, allowing 787 sales to begin.
The security agency’s authorization came after a serious investigation of Boeing’s production process.
” We did n’t approve the return to deliveries until we were convinced that Boeing’s corrective actions were effective”, the FAA’s Gregor said.
Additionally, the FAA has been checking every individual 787 since shipments have resumed before issuing an Airworthiness License that authorizes its delivery to an airport.
In a statement, Boeing stated that” we slowed creation and stopped delivering 787s for nearly two years to take our time to get things straight and confirm each met our strict executive features.”
Salehpour claimed on Tuesday that Boeing’s solution hid the problem rather than fixed it.
He claimed that engineers early in the 787 program allowed the fuselage sections to be pushed together during final assembly with excessive force before measuring for gaps to “make it appear like the gaps did n’t exist” from 2012 on.
Even after the 2020 delivery stoppage this continued, he claims, based on his work on the program in 2021.
According to Salehpour,” I repeatedly produced reports for my supervisors and management based on Boeing’s own data showing that the gaps in the 787 were not being properly measured,” he said.
As a result, he said, the small filler pieces of material used to fill gaps — known as shims — were in many cases not inserted.
Unfilled gaps in the carbon composite fuselage’s skin, metal fasteners, and joint fittings would theoretically allow the joined sections to move a little bit in relation to one another as the composite’s skin, metal fasteners, and joint fittings expand and contract with temperature changes during flight.
Over time, this can cause excessive wear and cause premature failure of the structure, Salehpour said. ” It can cause a catastrophic failure”.
Shimming, or” 5 thou,” as it is known in manufacturing airplanes, involves inserting these small, precisely sized pieces to fill gaps larger than five thousandths of an inch.
One of Salehpour’s lawyers, Lisa Banks, added that” shimming is a time- consuming process however. And, of course, time is money”.
Saleh further claimed that Boeing assumed that because of the force exerted to join the sections, there was no gap for debris from the drilling to fall into when Boeing drilled fastener holes at the fuselage section joins.
With that assumption in mind, it is unnecessary to separate the parts after drilling so that you can clear the debris, smooth the holes ‘ edges, and reassemble the sections.
According to Salehpour’s attorneys ‘ letter to the FAA,” This significantly expedites the assembly process and reduces costs.”
However, Salehpour asserts that Salehpour’s theory that any gaps were less than 5 thou and that they would be free of debris was incorrect, based on inaccurate measurements that neglected to account for the fact that gaps are larger around holes drilled further away from the join.
According to the letter to the FAA,” Boeing’s use of this approach has resulted in drilling debris being left in the interfaces of approximately 80 %” of the joins in the 787s ‘ forward and rear fuselage sections.”
According to Salehpour, the Boeing figure for the 80 % data point was obtained from Boeing’s testing and inspection of 28 prototype aircraft built after 2020.
Boeing: The 787 gaps pose no risk
Boeing asserts that the safety issues it fixed on the 787 production airplanes during the delivery halt never presented a near-term safety risk.
However, Boeing claimed that because those jets exceeded the specifications set forth when the 787 was certified, they needed to have those aircraft repaired in the factory. It is against Boeing’s policy to knowingly deliver an airplane that does n’t meet that standard.
Boeing looked into whether there is a long-term risk that their airframes will age more quickly and potentially fail, as opposed to the 787s that had already been delivered previously with these out-of-conformance gaps and are currently flying around the world — about 980 jets. It came to the conclusion that there is not.
This was largely based on the testing that was conducted during certification, such as testing the airframe with strain gauges and loads and simulated the physical stresses of repeated flights on the ground. One of the first 787s built was tested for long-term structural fatigue during this certification.
From 2010 to 2015, that airplane went through 165, 000 simulated cycles of takeoffs, pressurizations, depressurizations and landings —” about 3.75 times the jet’s designed lifespan of 44, 000 cycles, with no findings of fatigue”, Boeing said.
The 787s that are currently in use around the world currently fly on average about 600 cycles per year. Boeing said a 787 delivered in 2012 has the highest cycles of any delivered to date: about 16, 500 flights.
” Based on the previous fuselage testing up to 165, 000 cycles and Boeing’s extensive data gathering, testing, modeling and analysis from 2020 to today— shared transparently with the FAA — Boeing currently expects these issues will not change or affect the expected lifespan of the 787 fuselages”, Boeing said Tuesday.
Only one component on the 787, the forward pressure bulkhead, a metal part that seals the pressurization at the front of the aircraft, is still being studied and analyzed, according to Boeing, after its tests and analysis of in-service data.
Boeing anticipates suggesting an additional inspection throughout the lifetime of the aircraft to prevent long-term degradation of that single component even though no stress corrosion has been observed.
The FAA is still examining the in-service data and has not yet decided whether any further action should be required in the wake of any possible changes to the fuselage gaps on the fleet of 787s currently in flight.
” We continue to evaluate Boeing ‘s , long- term corrective actions to the 787 manufacturing process as a result of the shimming issues”, the FAA said Tuesday.
Jumping on 777 panels to make them fit
Salehpour claimed that a supervisor threatened him with physical violence because he publicly spoke out. He claimed that management harassed him, he was bullied, and he was even harassed by him.
Then he was transferred out of the 787 program to the 777 program, where he said he “hoped there would be fewer problems”.
” That turns out to be not true”, he said.
He claimed that he found that the new fuselage build system that Boeing first introduced in 2015 was poorly implemented, resulting in improper alignment of the large fuselage panels imported from Japan into the assembly equipment.
This was the Fuselage Upright Build System, which Boeing engineers developed in 2014 , inside a nondescript facility in Arlington. The goal was to eliminate the enormous tooling equipment used at the Everett plant to cut the large 777 panels into fuselage sections and to automate the drilling and fastening required to join the panels.
It proved very problematic and in 2019 Boeing finally , abandoned the automated drilling robots , as impractical. Mechanical labor resumed hand-sewing the panels.
The new tooling system, according to Salehpour, is not entirely compatible with the older tooling, despite Boeing’s other choices.
As a result, parts were misaligned and mechanics had to use brute force to fasten them together, he said.
When the plane came together, there were severe misalignments that were fixed by applying an unbalanced and unlimitable amount of force to the misaligned holes and parts, Salehpour said. I literally witnessed people attempting to align the airplane’s pieces.
Jumping up and down caused the parts to temporarily align, allowing the mechanic to insert a mallet into the hole, he claimed.
This” can cause damage to the parts and creates risk factors for primary structures”, Salehpour added.
The specialized allegations surrounding the 777 were not addressed by Boeing.
Threats and harassment
Salehpour stated at the news conference that he is partly motivated by the conversation he had with an engineer friend who had collaborated on missile systems in the 1980s and 1990s.
His friend informed him that during the development process he had unsuccessfully attempted to draw attention to the O ring vulnerability after the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986, when all seven astronauts died after an explosion, the ultimate cause of which was later traced to flawed rubber O- rings joint seals.
He said that made him realize that speaking up would have to pay off for my career.
Saleh repeatedly addressed his 787 concerns to supervisors, according to Debra Katz, one of his attorneys, who spoke at the news conference.
” Initially, he was just told to shut up. Then he was told he was a problem. Then he was excluded from meetings, and he was excluded from taking travel with his team, said Katz”. He was prohibited from speaking with structural engineers. To aid in his understanding of the data, he was prohibited from speaking with mathematicians and others.
” At one point, his ( 787 ) boss threatened him with physical violence,” she added”. That was documented. That actually was in writing. He handed over the threat of physical abuse to HR, but HR did not take any action against the offending supervisor.
The company statement said” Retaliation is strictly prohibited at Boeing.”
Voluntary reporting without fear of reprisals, according to the FAA’s Gregor, is a crucial component of aviation safety. Everyone in the aviation sector is urged to share information, we think.
Technical information and supporting documentation to evaluate Salehpour’s claims accurately were not immediately available.
However, Tuesday’s news conference added a new dimension to Boeing’s struggle to arouse support from the public and persuade the world that its aircraft are safe.
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