Two Boeing Whistleblowers Allege Disregarded Worker Concerns, Pressure For Speed (npr.org) 72
"Federal regulators are investigating a whistleblower's claims about flaws in the assembly of Boeing's 787 Dreamliner," NPR reported this week:
Longtime Boeing engineer Sam Salehpour went public Tuesday with claims that he observed problems with how parts of the plane's fuselage were fastened together. Salehpour warns that production "shortcuts" could significantly shorten the lifespan of the plane, eventually causing the fuselage to fall apart in mid-flight. "It can cause a catastrophic failure," Salehpour said Tuesday during a press briefing to discuss his claims.
A spokesman for the FAA confirmed that the agency is investigating those allegations, which were first reported by the New York Times, but declined to comment further on them. Boeing immediately pushed back. "These claims about the structural integrity of the 787 are inaccurate and do not represent the comprehensive work Boeing has done to ensure the quality and long-term safety of the aircraft," Boeing spokeswoman Jessica Kowal said in a statement. "We are fully confident in the 787 Dreamliner."
Salehpour and his lawyers argue that Boeing has never adequately addressed production flaws discovered in 2021 (which included unacceptable gaps between the fuselage panels), according to the article. "Instead, he says the company took 'shortcuts' by applying greater force to fit segments of the fuselage together." "Boeing hid the problem by pushing the pieces together with force to make it appear like that the gap didn't exist," Salehpour told reporters at Tuesday's press briefing. Salehpour says he repeatedly raised these concerns with management, but instead of addressing them, they transferred him to work on a different plane, the 777, where he alleges he saw similar problems. "I literally saw people jumping on the pieces of the airplane to get them to align," he said. "That's not how you build a plane."
In a follow-up piece, NPR reports that former Boeing mechanic Davin Fischer "says he spoke up — and paid a steep price for it." He says Boeing's leaders were constantly pushing to speed up production. "Hey, we need to go faster, faster, faster," Fischer said. "They cared more about shareholders and investors than they did planes, their employees, anything." When Fischer finally pushed back, he says he was demoted in retaliation, and then fired from the company in 2019. Fischer says many of his friends who still work at Boeing are afraid to speak out. "People there are scared, a hundred percent," he said. "Because they don't want to get fired."
NPR also cites the example of longtime quality manager John Barnett, who said in a 2019 interview with Ralph Nader that his managers at Boeing retaliated against him by docking his pay and creating a hostile environment.
A spokesman for the FAA confirmed that the agency is investigating those allegations, which were first reported by the New York Times, but declined to comment further on them. Boeing immediately pushed back. "These claims about the structural integrity of the 787 are inaccurate and do not represent the comprehensive work Boeing has done to ensure the quality and long-term safety of the aircraft," Boeing spokeswoman Jessica Kowal said in a statement. "We are fully confident in the 787 Dreamliner."
Salehpour and his lawyers argue that Boeing has never adequately addressed production flaws discovered in 2021 (which included unacceptable gaps between the fuselage panels), according to the article. "Instead, he says the company took 'shortcuts' by applying greater force to fit segments of the fuselage together." "Boeing hid the problem by pushing the pieces together with force to make it appear like that the gap didn't exist," Salehpour told reporters at Tuesday's press briefing. Salehpour says he repeatedly raised these concerns with management, but instead of addressing them, they transferred him to work on a different plane, the 777, where he alleges he saw similar problems. "I literally saw people jumping on the pieces of the airplane to get them to align," he said. "That's not how you build a plane."
In a follow-up piece, NPR reports that former Boeing mechanic Davin Fischer "says he spoke up — and paid a steep price for it." He says Boeing's leaders were constantly pushing to speed up production. "Hey, we need to go faster, faster, faster," Fischer said. "They cared more about shareholders and investors than they did planes, their employees, anything." When Fischer finally pushed back, he says he was demoted in retaliation, and then fired from the company in 2019. Fischer says many of his friends who still work at Boeing are afraid to speak out. "People there are scared, a hundred percent," he said. "Because they don't want to get fired."
NPR also cites the example of longtime quality manager John Barnett, who said in a 2019 interview with Ralph Nader that his managers at Boeing retaliated against him by docking his pay and creating a hostile environment.
As Always (Score:5, Insightful)
As always, it never ends well for whistleblowers, no matter where you work. A WEB search will show may (majority?) of cases were the whistleblower's life is ruined.
Lets hope this time Boeing's penalty is high enough to make it change its ways. And maybe a bit of real jail time for execs that allowed this to happen. Maybe that will change the US "Wall Street First" Culture.
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Sounds like a "shithole" country. I had no idea the US was this far gone already.
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Sounds like a "shithole" country. I had no idea the US was this far gone already.
The phrase is "Fundamentally Transform."
From a country that was working okay-ish, to one that isn't working at all.
Re: As Always (Score:2)
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Why should I care who the president is? It's not like I live in Israel.
Do you live in Europe? The parts Putin wants now, or the parts Putin wants later?
Re:As Always (Score:5, Insightful)
You're never gonna change the culture, not with a fine.
Re:As Always (Score:4, Insightful)
Lets hope this time Boeing's penalty is high enough to make it change its ways. And maybe a bit of real jail time for execs that allowed this to happen. Maybe that will change the US "Wall Street First" Culture.
In the US system it is always easier to bribe your way out of trouble than it is to make changes and it's neither hard nor expensive to do so. Now, if anybody thinks I'm unfairly criticising the US here I'm not. Have any of the people that almost crashed the world economy back in 2007-8 served a day in jail? Anywhere in the world? The last time I looked it was 47 of them. Out of these 27 were convicted in Iceland, 11 in Spain, 7 in the Irish Republic. Everywhere else the list does not top one individual and that includes the USA. These people are protected and punishing them would set a 'dangerous precedent'. Boeing executives will bail out of Boeing in a jewel encrusted golden parachute straight into a gated community in one of US America's internal tax havens and live a life in the lap of luxury never wasting a single thought on the people who died in the 737 crashes because they'll break too busy bribing their idiot kids' way into an Ivy League college and coming up with some new and more innovative way of destroying what's left of the US manufacturing industry.
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The sad part is people will die. Americans will pay the price. We will be punished.
The bad actors will only be rewarded.
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Yep. There is evil in the world. This is what it looks like.
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There is evil in the world.
Just to make sure... The purpose of the post you reply to was to highlight the specific evil in the USA system as opposed to other countries in the world. Jail sentences were applied to bank executives in the cited countries, see here for Iceland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
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The purpose of my posting was to point out the banality of most evil and that "banal evil" people far too often get away with it. Corruption of the form found in the US is hardly unique.
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Thanks for the explanation.
Re:As Always (Score:5, Interesting)
As always, it never ends well for whistleblowers, no matter where you work. A WEB search will show may (majority?) of cases were the whistleblower's life is ruined.
Unfortunately often true. But whistleblowers are usually not in it for the fame, instead they are typically deeply offended by what they see and are willing to take a personal risk to make things change. The often found cave-man style "shoot the messenger" management cannot deal with that and hence tries to retaliate.
Re: As Always (Score:2)
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Re: As Always (Score:4)
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No. Not really. Boeing's stock related to performance of management decisions is something for the shareholders / board to manage. Individuals pushing against management is not to the benefit of the company. It creates disorder. Corporations are not socialist democracies. They are dictatorships.
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I don't think so. Individuals pushing back hard to stop Boeing aircraft from crashing are probably benefiting the company long term, unless, of course, you think having a reputation for shoddy manufacturing is a good thing for an aircraft manufacturer.
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Boeing could have avoided this by heeding the warnings from staff instead of punishing them.
No, they could not have avoided this. The problem, from their perspective, is that the public knows about the issues.
They heeded the warnings, but made the calculation that profit in the hand now is more important than dealing with any issues later.
This situation was 100% inevitable. Another thing that is inevitable is that Boeing will NEVER recover from this. Boeing management is incurably infected with bad values and I VERY seriously doubt they will do an entire executive wipe.
Re: As Always (Score:3)
Pushing back against management hard is evidence that you're not working to the benefit of the company and should be fired.
OK. So all Boeing's board of directors would have to do is to mandate that middle and lower management implement real quality improvement measures. Any resistance would be "pushing back". Resulting in the termination of those managers.
Yeah, right. You don't understand how Boeing or any other companies internal politics work. Middle management would just band together to resist change and protect their peers. And production would effectively shut down.
It takes years or even decades to turn company cultures
Re: As Always (Score:5, Insightful)
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"he should have quit and gone to work for...."Spoken like a true bootlicker.
I'm not sure why you think not wanting to work in a toxic environment for a corporation whose direction I disagree with makes me a boot licker. I feel like you completely misunderstood my post.
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This is someone who knows that safety is the number one priority
Then why work at Boeing? The only thing that matters there is money. Safety is not even a secondary consideration when money is on the line. The only thing that matters is money.
Re: As Always (Score:2)
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Re: As Always (Score:2)
That is essentially how whistle-blowing is done. The problem is, the cognizant government organization would begin to conduct an investigation to collect evidence for their case. At which time, management would begin their own investigation to find the rat.
Not every whistle-blowing complaint is justified. Some are just blackmail. But until the gov't establishes te veracity of the complaint, the company hopes to find and discredit these parties.
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That is essentially how whistle-blowing is done
I think more often, whistleblowing is just complaining to your manager, or manager's manager.
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Lets hope this time Boeing's penalty is high enough to make it change its ways.
That is like hoping that chemotherapy works against stage 4 cancer that has spread to the lymph nodes. Boeing (and HP, unrelated) need to be burned entirely to the ground and the ashes swept away. The rot is not reversible or fixable.
I don't have all the answers but... (Score:1)
...if engineers were in charge of quality and safety instead of accountants and suits I seriously doubt these problems would have been tolerated.
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Such idiotic moves probably made the assholes behind them a lot of money short-term, but long-term they are excessively expensive for everybody. Essentially a form of corruption.
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Engineers understand things and want to do a good job. Suits just want to line their pockets. From my observation, suits are usually not that smart either. I think any engineering out fit should have c-levels that are mandated by law to be engineers (and no crap like a BA with no significant engineering experience), except where another specialty is needed, e.g. for the CFO. And then, personal criminal liability from the CEO on downwards for bad engineering practices that are not being addressed.
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I think any engineering out fit should have c-levels that are mandated by law to be engineers
It won't help. "Ambitious" management types will just see that as another obstacle, and then will feel more entitled to riches because they've "worked so hard for them."
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Generally, management types cannot get engineering degrees. The few that can will get changed fundamentally in the process of getting one.
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It is Microsoft. Nobody competent wants to work there.
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To be fair, you find greedy and thieving engineers too. It's just that being engineers they will realise that you cannot make a system like MCAS and not have it blow in your face within months the first time a bird strikes the one sensor that was keeping everyone on a plane alive.
The main problem with the McDonnel-Douglas suits was not even their greed or shortsightedness focused only on stock price. It's their outright blindness to the technical reality
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Indeed. I am well aware there are scum engineers. (Look at weapons designers, for example or ones that choose to cut corners fully knowing that this will likely kill people.) But they at least have some understanding of what they are doing. "Suits" routinely do not, just as you point out for the MDD management.
And this leads to a second factor: An engineer doing evil usually chose to do it. A suit often was simply greedy but clueless. The former you can punish for any and all damage done. The latter was jus
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It's just that being engineers they will realise that you cannot make a system like MCAS and not have it blow in your face within months the first time a bird strikes the one sensor that was keeping everyone on a plane alive
It sounds like you read a summary but didn't actually understand the engineering issues.
There were obvious flaws with the situation for low-budget foreign airlines that didn't have both sensors, but that's a detail that is easily fixed by not selling without the second sensor. It's not a problem with "a system like MCAS" because MCAS supports multiple sensors. And you don't seem to realize that MCAS is still a thing, either.
Most of the aircraft design is focused on the features on planes being delivered to
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Even if the suits and the engineers were of the same moral caliber the problem would still persist – that is not the issue. The suits simply do not have the experience, training nor the perspective that the engineers have. Engineers learn and internalize the fact that if the processes are not adequate or if they are not followed the system will fail in test - because they constantly see it with their own eyes - or worse yet it will fail in the field. While managers, in general, simply do not have t
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I completely agree.
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It is already the case in most states that at least some of the owners / directors of an engineering company must be licensed engineers, and that all engineering has to be done under the direct supervision and responsibility of a licensed engineer. Varies by state and by type of corporation / partnership / sole proprietorship.
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Engineers understand things and want to do a good job. Suits just want to line their pockets. From my observation, suits are usually not that smart either. I think any engineering out fit should have c-levels that are mandated by law to be engineers (and no crap like a BA with no significant engineering experience), except where another specialty is needed, e.g. for the CFO. And then, personal criminal liability from the CEO on downwards for bad engineering practices that are not being addressed.
Yeah, I don't know that engineering background need to be required in a C*O, but it'd help if there was even a tiny little bitty shred of respect from the C-suite to the engineers. Some engineering is life-consuming, and we need those folks. But C-suites need a bigger view. Unfortunately, we've decided in the US that the bigger view needs to be all about the money, and everything else be damned. To the point where real engineers are ignored outright, or worse, fought against. That's when companies go topsy-
Logical, inevitable outcome (Score:5, Insightful)
This is where allowing and even actively encouraging the practice of cost externalization gets us. The terrible things that Boeing and other companies do in the name of profit, are unlikely to result in the financial ruin of the companies, nor in the imprisonment of the decision makers.
They're also unlikely to result in prison time for the perpetrators. Instead, the consciences of the workers who stay silent are plagued by fear and shame, and the lives of those who do speak out are ruined. In one recent instance, it seems almost certain that a whistleblower was killed for doing the morally right and responsible thing.
Allowing corporations to get away with poisonings, maimings, and homicides both involuntary and voluntary, is just business as usual. We need to find a way to change that. Sadly, I don't know how.
Guess who's gonna be flipping burgers at McD (Score:2)
for the rest of his working life?
Longtime Boeing engineer Sam Salehpour went public Tuesday [...]
I admire him for doing that. He essentially torpedoed his entire career for the sake of doing the right thing.
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The FAA needs him, and people like him.
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If there were any respectable manufacturers left after all of this consolidation, they might hire him simply to make the point that they have high standards.
As it stands, he's going to have to try to get a job at the FAA.
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I'd initially thought of Airbus, but he'd have to relocate to France or Germany and the FAA would probably be a better fit.
The disadvantages of Airbus would be: language (although I think the official language at work would be English), and Boeing would then start floating the claim that he'd been planning to move all along and that the complaints were to damage his old employer and build up the new one.
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Airbus has assembly plants in the US.
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There is plenty of work for an aerospace engineer outside of manufacturing. Maintenance for example. Or accident investigation.
So how out of the ordinary is jumping on it? (Score:3, Interesting)
I'm reminded of the workers with small rubber hammers doing final alignment of body panels in car factories, these fuselage panels will have a lot more deformation than that. Simply lining up the rivet holes probably takes a fair bit of judiciously applied force and humans are relatively cheap and very flexible robots to solve such problems.
How much force is too much? How much gap is too much? If he did the simulations to determine how much is too much his opinion are relevant, if he was just on the line and didn't think it was reasonable it doesn't necessarily mean much.
Safety critical (Score:2)
Everything that happens building an airframe should be a documented process. Calibrated torque wrenches are expected, jumping on things is not.
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How much force is too much? How much gap is too much? If he did the simulations to determine how much is too much his opinion are relevant, if he was just on the line and didn't think it was reasonable it doesn't necessarily mean much.
That is why there is an investigation. It will be scientifically examined and the words will either be proven or disproven. Regardless, Boeing will return to business as usual. But at least it will be examined, even if nothing is really done about the root cause of the issues.
Enough is Enough (Score:2)
Procedure be damned...it sounds like this was malicious enough the government should shut down all production, lock everyone out of the buildings, and go over them with a fine tooth comb. Everyone that pushed profits over safety needs to be jailed.
These mega-corps need to fear the government and not have it's dick sucked by it. We the people are the ones to pay for this, not the CEOs, not the legislators.
Every Boeing exec needs to be detained and questioned. We the people will take pleas of the fifth as cov
Want action? (Score:2)
Pass a law requiring every C-level executive, congressperson, and senator to conduct all personal and business travel over an 1 or 2 hour car drive on carriers who use their product.
I suggested personal travel as they would surely find a way to book business travel using personal time ( think âoeCancun Cruzâ ).
If they give a shit about their own or their family's safety, quality will improve.
I like how sardonic (Score:1)
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unrealistic youthful idealism
oh yeah, /. a 30 year old website inhabited by old cranky greybards who hate change has always been a bastion of positivity and embracing new ideas
the fuck outta here, did you get here last year?
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the comments at Slashdot are becoming lately
I disagree, strongly. Lately, the comments have been as unbecoming as always.
Lattitude (Score:3)
The root cause of the problems (Score:5, Interesting)
...is when corporations redefined the purpose of the corporation to "increasing shareholder value"
The purpose of a company SHOULD be, to produce useful goods and services for satisfied customers while treating employees, customers and the environment fairly, and making a reasonable profit
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...is when corporations redefined the purpose of the corporation to "increasing shareholder value" The purpose of a company SHOULD be, to produce useful goods and services for satisfied customers while treating employees, customers and the environment fairly, and making a reasonable profit
Careful. That kind of talk will get you on a list somewhere.
Profit first. Greed is good. So say us all.