By Tom Costello and Lewis Kamb -
NBC News
A Boeing engineer-turned-whistleblower who has said the aerospace giant's 787 Dreamliner is unsafe to fly due to assembly defects doubled down on his claims Tuesday, saying the plane could come apart and
“fall to the ground.”
in mid-flight unless the alleged safety problems are resolved.
Boeing refuted the claims Tuesday, saying the plane is safe and that the company has “full confidence in the 787 Dreamliner.”
Sam Salehpour, a Boeing quality engineer, spoke to
NBC's
Nightly News
program in his first on-camera interview since making his allegations public last week. Salehpour said the company
has not yet adequately addressed small gaps found in multiple planes
when two sections of their fuselages are joined together during assembly. He expanded that these “security issues” could have catastrophic consequences.
When asked if he would put his own family on a 787, Salehpour didn't hesitate to respond: “Not right now.”
Salehpour is expected to testify Wednesday before a U.S. Senate subcommittee.
The allegations have come to light as Boeing continues to reel from the aftermath of a mid-flight panel covering a door space on a newly built 737 Max 9 aircraft that fell off during a crowded Alaska Airlines flight last week. January 5. That incident has sparked intense scrutiny of the company's manufacturing processes, and led Dave Calhoun, Boeing's chief executive, to announce that he is stepping down from his position.
In a statement, Boeing stated: “These claims about the structural integrity of the 787 are inaccurate. The issues raised have been the subject of rigorous engineering examination under the supervision of the FAA [Federal Aviation Administration].”
During a press visit to the plant that makes the 787 Dreamliner in South Carolina on Monday, two Boeing engineers defended the structural integrity of the 787, saying the wide-body plane
was stress-tested
for 165,000 cycles. beyond the expected service life of the aircraft, and there were never any failures. The company stated that it had inspected 689 of the more than 1,100 787 aircraft in service worldwide and found no signs of fatigue in the structure.
Jeff Guzzetti, a former FAA safety investigator, told NBC News: “Even if these cracks were to form, which there is no evidence of, the plane is so strong and so structurally robust, according to Boeing, that it is not going to break.” ”.
Despite these assurances, Salehpour stood by his statements to NBC News on Tuesday, saying that 787 production should stop while alleged problems in the fleet now in service are resolved. He noted that the deficiencies could make the 787 susceptible to “premature fatigue failure,” especially as the planes age.
Salehpour's accusations first came to light last week, in a report by The New York Times and subsequently in other media. Salehpour brought the issue to the FAA in January. The agency has said it is investigating his allegations. Salehpour, who has worked for Boeing for 15 years, said that after raising his concerns internally, Boeing transferred him to work on the 777 line in 2022.
“Retaliation is strictly prohibited at Boeing,” the company commented.
Salehpour told NBC News that he felt compelled to make his allegations public. “When I see questionable actions that could cause safety issues, I am committed to standing up, regardless of the cost,” he said.
Lisa Banks, Salehpour's attorney, separately told NBC News on Tuesday that she has heard from at least a half-dozen “additional potential whistleblowers at Boeing who have spoken about the same types of issues that Sam has raised with Boeing.”
“
I have 100% confidence in Sam's allegations
because they are based on Boeing's own data and Sam's decades of experience as a quality engineer,” Banks stressed.