Boeing whistleblowers say they received death threats from supervisors after raising security concerns as they testify in blockbuster congressional hearing: ‘This is a criminal cover up’

A Boeing whistleblower told a Congress hearing that he received threats against his life, while another said a probe into the door of an Alaskan Airlines flight that blew out was a ‘criminal cover up’. 

Sam Salehpour and Ed Pierson were giving evidence to a hearing on Wednesday around the beleaguered company and their ongoing safety crisis. 

Salehpour works as a Quality Engineer for the company, and claimed that sections of the 787 Dreamliner jets have not been properly secured. 

While Pierson, Executive Director of The Foundation for Aviation Society and former Boeing manager, had previously warned of ‘chaotic manufacturing’ at the company. 

During the hearing on Wednesday, it was revealed that Salehpour had faced threats from his supervisor after he attempted to discuss issues with the jets. 

Pierson also said in written testimony that he believes the investigation into the 737 Max that had its door blown out mid flight was being covered up. 

Pierson said: ‘Last Wednesday, the NTSB Chair reiterated to Congress that Boeing has said there are no records documenting the work associated with the removal of the Alaska Airlines door.

‘In my opinion this is a criminal cover-up. Records do exist documenting in detail the hectic work done on the Alaska Airlines airplane and Boeing’s corporate leaders know it too.

‘They fought to withhold these same damning records after the two MAX crashes. I know this Alaska airplane documentation exists because I personally passed it to the FBI.’ 

While Salehpour told the hearing: ‘I have even been subjected to threats of violence from my supervisor after I attempted to discuss the problems in a meeting in April 9 2023. 

‘After the meeting, my supervisor said to me, ‘I would have killed anyone who said what you said if it was from some other group, I would tear them apart.”

He added: ‘I provided evidence of this threat as part of an ethics complaint, but no action has been taken and I continue to report to a supervisor who has threatened me with bodily injury for speaking out.’

He also added: ‘Boeing officials attempted to intimidate and retaliate against me by sidelining me from my job duties and excluding me from key meetings.’

As well as the threats being made against Salehpour, Senator Richard Blumenthal held up a picture of a large nail through a car tire. 

Directing his questioning towards Salehpour, he said: ‘That bolt was inserted as a threat, perhaps as a risk to you.’

Salehpour explained: ‘I was losing air in my tire and I bring it to someone, they said you have a nail in the tire. That was about a one month old tire.

‘The gentleman told me it wasn’t picked up through normal driving. The nail was inserted in there, I believe it happened at work.’

Salehpour was questioned further on this, asked by Senator Roger Marshall if he believed the tire incident and the threats was part of efforts by the company to silence and prevent him from sharing his story. 

Salehpour said: ‘I think the retaliation was somebody calling me on my personal phone time after time. This is my personal phone.

‘My boss was calling me there for forty minutes, he berated me and chewed me out. I have a work phone that he could use but he called me on my personal phone. 

‘It reminds me of people calling you on your personal phone to let you know they know where you live, they know where you are, and they can hurt you.

‘After the threats, and after this, it really scares me – believe me. But I am at peace.’ 

His lawyers say that Boeing has ignored his concerns and prevented him from talking to experts about fixing the problems. 

On Tuesday night, Salehpour told NBC News that the jets should be grounded on account of ‘fatal flaws’ that could cause the plane to fall apart mid air. 

When asked by the outlet if he would put his own family on a 787, he replied: ‘Right now, I would not.’ 

His attorneys said that Salehpour faced retaliation, such as threats and exclusion from meetings, after he identified engineering problems.

They also claim that Boeing employed shortcuts to reduce bottlenecks during 787 assembly. 

Another Boeing whistleblower – Ed Pierson, a former manager on the Boeing 737 program – and two other aviation technical experts are also on the witness list.

The Democrat who chairs the panel and its senior Republican have asked Boeing for troves of documents going back six years.

The lawmakers are seeking all records about manufacturing of Boeing 787 and 777 planes.

This will include any safety concerns or complaints raised by Boeing employees, contractors or airlines. 

A Boeing spokesperson said the company is cooperating with the lawmakers’ inquiry and offered to provide documents and briefings.

The company says claims about the 787’s structural integrity are false. Two Boeing engineering execs said this week that in both design testing and inspections of planes – some of them 12 years old – there have been no findings of fatigue or cracking in the composite panels.

They suggested that the material, formed from carbon fibers and resin, is nearly impervious to fatigue that is a constant worry with aluminum fuselages.

The Boeing officials also dismissed another of Salehpour’s allegations: that he saw factory workers jumping on sections of fuselage on 777s to make them align.

Salehpour is the latest whistleblower to emerge with allegations about manufacturing problems at Boeing. 

In March, whistleblower John Barnett was found dead in his truck in South Carolina while going throwing a whistleblowing suit against his former employer. 

The 62-year-old alleged that under-pressure workers were deliberately fitting sub-standard parts to aircraft while on the assembly line.

Barnett had alleged that second-rate parts were literally removed from scrap bins, before being fitted to planes that were being built to prevent delays.

A 2017 review by the FAA upheld some of his concerns, requiring Boeing to take action.

He had just given a deposition to Boeing’s lawyers for the case the week before his death, his attorney Brian Knowles said.

Barnett’s job for 32 years was overseeing production standards for the firm’s planes – standards he said were not met during his four years at the then-new plant in Charleston from 2010 to 2014. 

Barnett claimed he alerted superiors at the plant about his misgivings, but no action was ever taken. Boeing denied this, as well as his claims. 

The company has been pushed into crisis mode since a door-plug panel blew off a 737 Max jetliners during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. 

Investigators are focusing on four bolts that were removed and apparently not replaced during a repair job in Boeing´s factory.

The company faces a criminal investigation by the Justice Department and separate investigations by the FAA and the National Transportation Safety Board.

CEO David Calhoun, who will step down at the end of the year, has said many times that Boeing is taking steps to improve its manufacturing quality and safety culture. 

He called the blowout on the Alaska jet a ‘watershed moment’ from which a better Boeing will emerge. There is plenty of skepticism about comments like that.

Senator Tammy Duckworth, member of the Senate Commerce Committee, said: ‘We need to look at what Boeing does, not just what it says it’s doing.’

The FAA is also likely to take some hits. Duckworth said that until recently, the agency ‘looked past far too many of Boeing´s repeated bad behaviors’.

In particularly when it certified the 737 Max nearly a decade ago. Two Max jets crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people, after faulty activations of a flight-control system that FAA did not fully understand.

The leaders of the Senate investigations subcommittee have also requested FAA documents about its oversight of Boeing.

The subcommittee’s hearing Wednesday will follow one by the Senate Commerce Committee, which is scheduled to hear from members of an expert panel that examined safety at Boeing. 

The group said that despite improvements made after the Max crashes, Boeing’s safety culture remains flawed and employees who raise concerns could be subject to pressure and retaliation.

One of the witnesses, MIT aeronautics lecturer Javier de Luis, lost his sister in the second Max crash.

Wednesday’s hearing, titled ‘Examining Boeing’s Broken Safety Culture: Firsthand Accounts,’ will be chaired by Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, who has described Salehpour’s allegations as ‘deeply serious.’

‘If Boeing continues to disregard safety and quality and put profits over everything else, the public’s endangered because it creates gaps in the manufacturing integrity,’ Blumenthal said on Connecticut Public Radio.

Besides Salehpour, the witness list includes former engineers with Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) who now work at the Foundation for Aviation Safety, which has also criticized Boeing’s practices.

The fourth listed witness is former pilot Shawn Pruchnicki, now at Ohio State University, who expressed skepticism about Boeing’s statements in a recent CNN interview.

Boeing representatives will not testify at the hearing, but the company said it is cooperating with the inquiry.

‘We have offered to provide documents, testimony and technical briefings, and are in discussions with the Subcommittee regarding next steps,’ a spokesman said.