Boeing says there are no fatigue cracks on older 787s that have undergone ... trends now
Boeing has hit back at whistleblower allegations that its planes are flawed ahead of a Senate hearing on Wednesday.
Two Boeing engineer executives issued a robust defense of how the company's 787 Dreamliner is constructed during a media briefing on Monday.
The suggested the plane's carbon-composite panels are immune to metal fatigue that often weaken traditional aluminum fuselages.
Steve Chisholm, Boeing's vice president of structural engineering, said the company tested the safety of 787s by replicating 165,000 flights and did not find any evidence of fatigue in the composite structure.
His remarks come just one week after Boeing whistleblower Sam Salehpour claimed he 'literally saw people jumping on the pieces of the airplane to get them to align.'
'That’s not how you build an airplane,' said Salehpour, who worked as a Boeing engineer for over a decade and is now set to testify on Capitol Hill on Wednesday.
A doorplug blew out midair on an Alaska Airlines flight on January 7, 2024 in Portland, Oregon
Pictured: Outgoing Boeing CEO David Calhoun speaking with reporters weeks after a Boeing 737's door plug blew out
Whistleblower Salehpour claims he saw people jumping on airplane panels to get them to align
Boeing has faced enormous scrutiny since a faulty door plug on an Alaska Airlines 787 Max 9 plane blew out at 16,000 feet in January. A month later, three passengers on that flight filed a $1 billion lawsuit against Boeing and Alaska Airlines.
Salehpour is the latest in a line of Boeing whistleblowers to come forward to raise safety concerns.
Former Boeing staffer John Barnett, 62, raised concerns about under-pressure workers deliberately fitting sub-standard parts to aircraft on the assembly line earlier this year.
After alleging his bosses were spying on him, Barnett
