Boeing whistleblower: Company is to blame for door plug incident

(NewsNation) — An anonymous whistleblower, claiming to be a Boeing employee, recently said the company is to blame for the Alaska Airlines door plug incident, an assessment two experts NewsNation talked to agree with.

It was a terrifying moment for those on board when a plug covering an unused exit door blew off a Boeing 737 Max jetliner as it flew above Oregon. The jet had to make an emergency landing, but no serious injuries were reported.

Now, the whistleblower says it was Boeing, and not its supplier, Spirit Aerosystems, that incorrectly installed the piece that blew off. Boeing, they said, had reinstalled the panel after it was removed for repair.

Writing in an aviation blog, the whistleblower said that “the reason the door blew off is stated in black and white in Boeing’s own records.”

“It is also very, very stupid and speaks volumes about the quality culture at certain portions of the business,” the whistleblower said.

The self-described Boeing employee said four bolts, which help keep the door in place in flight, were “not installed when Boeing delivered the airplane” and that the company’s own records reflect this.

For Ed Pierson, a former senior manager of the Boeing 737 program, this account rings true.

“When I read that report, something jumped out at me right away with the systems that the person mentioned and the language that that individual used,” Pierson told NewsNation. “That person clearly understood how those systems were used and the types of information that you would find in those reports, so it definitely seemed credible to me.”

Everything Pierson read in the blog comment was “completely consistent” with what he said he saw when he worked at Boeing.

“We’ve had employees rushed to get jobs done, and they make mistakes, and this kind of a serious accident can occur,” Pierson said.

Today, Pierson is the executive director of the Foundation for Aviation Safety. He says what Boeing’s doing should not be acceptable to people.

“They should demand a much more exhaustive look — Congress is asking for additional investigations,” he said. “There’s a lot that needs to be answered before we can say good to go.”

A veteran safety engineer for the Federal Aviation Administration, Joe Jacobsen, is also sounding the alarm. Jacobsen, who spent 26 years with the FAA, confirmed that the whistleblower’s comment sounded consistent with what he’d been hearing from others.

“There’s a chaotic factory right now, and things are bound to get missed if people don’t pay attention and stop and reorganize,” Jacobsen said.

Why all the chaos? At the end of the day, Jacobsen said, “It’s about getting airplanes out the day, as quickly as they can” and ramping up production.

Pierson, meanwhile, says Boeing’s central problem is leadership.

“It comes down to: are people properly supported, properly trained? Are they given the necessary resources to do their job properly?” he asked.

Jacobsen, who now also works with the Foundation for Aviation Safety, says the organization has been tracking many problems with brand-new airplanes. Stabilizer trim motor failures, dual fight management computer failures and engine anti-ice systems that can overheat and damage the engine inlet’s structure are some of them.

“We’re kind of in a whack-a-mole situation,” Jacobsen said. So, he says, he would advise companies to stop, reorganize, fix the problems and “slow down.”

The public, Jacobsen said, needs to know that there are a lot of problems at Boeing that need to be resolved.

“We can’t just keep flying these things, or we’ll have another accident,” he said.

Boeing told NewsNation in a statement that as the agency responsible for investigating the incident, only the National Transportation Safety Board can release information about the investigation.

“We will defer to them for any information,” a spokesperson said.

Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun was on Capitol Hill Wednesday, where he met with lawmakers. He said the company believes in its airplanes.

“We feel they are safe airplanes,” Calhoun said.

On Thursday, Calhoun walked out of a meeting with senators without answering reporters’ questions.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, though, said they spent an hour talking about what went wrong.

“This accident is deeply disturbing,” Cruz said. “It’s a miracle no one was killed. Had it occurred at a higher altitude, every person on that plane would have been killed.”

In the meantime, the FAA just came out and said it’s clearing a way to get these planes back in the sky.

As a former FAA adviser, Jacobsen doesn’t think this is a good idea.

“I think I think they need to take a pause on not only the Max 9, but also the Max 8,” Jacobsen cautioned. “I think we just need to pause and figure out where we are.”

Right now, Jacobsen said, he would not schedule himself a flight on either jet.

“I’ve told my family for the last three years really to avoid the Maxes until this stuff gets sorted out and still, it is not sorted out, so that that would be my message to people.”