Is the latest whistleblower proven at least partially incorrect?
An important piece of reporting is published in the edition of Aviation Week dated April 22-May 5. Headlined, "Credibility Crisis", the article reports in some depth about the case Boeing has made publicly as to the safety of the 787 with particular reference to, and emphasis on, the allegations and/or concerns articulated by the whistleblower who testified recently before the Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
Before a summary of key aspects of the AW&ST reporting, a couple of sidebars should be stated. First, and this is based on mere SLF/attorney background - though some of background is in employment law and labor relations - the move by Boeing to South Carolina seems to be a major factor in what has gone wrong in that aseembly plant and its operations. Not only flight away from union representation of the labor force, not only moving out of the historic airplane-building culture of Seattle, but those factors seem pretty evident in the demise of the safety culture - as was testified to in the other Senate Committee hearing (Senate Commerce, with the three membeers of the Expert Panel).
Second, the AW&ST article notes that the whistleblower's attorney's letter to the FAA included various documents. The letter "cited internal Boeing documents - including a white paper from engineers with similar critiques - to support his claims" and the magazine requested copies of such documents but the law firm "did not provide them." One could speculate about various reasons why not, but it would be just speculation. That said, it is quite tempting to say that the law firm representing the whistleblower should make those documents public.
The article's main point is to report on the analysis and evidence Boeing has compiled showing that the assembly of 787 airplanes has not produced any unsafe conditions, in any meaningful context. There was a media briefing given by a "vice-president and chief engineer for mechanical and structural engineering".
As the article reports, extensive examination of in-service airplanes did not reveal any degradation or weakening of the fuselage sections where "joins" are made. Inspections were done at heavy maintenance intervals and extensively of the in-service fleet. (Referring to the article, 980 airframes were built before the gaps/shims problem was discovered and acknowledged; eight have undergone heavy maintaenace checks at the 12-year interval and 671 have been inspected at the six-year interval.) No evidence was found to support the claims made by the whistleblower with regard to long-term degradation of the integrity of the structure.
Significant evidence also was derived from the fatigue test article.
I'm obvioulsy (real obviously, sorry to have to say) not an engineer, so I may not be doing a worthy job of summarizing the article. I do say, as a sometime-vocal critic of Boeing, anyone who cares about the "latest Boeing news" - whether to contribute to restoring the once-preeminent engineering powerhouse or to helping it slide into oblivion - owes it to a decent sense of intellectual honesty to read the article.
Though Boeing has significant heavy lifting to do to restore a meaninful safety culture (don't take my word for it, take it from the Section 103 Expert Panel), that imperative does not equate to this specific whistleblower's substantive claim about airframe structures being correct. I'll be happy to stand corrected (or, in equivalent terms, to return to my seat and fasten my . . . ) if it is shown the article does not actually establish that his claims (about the structure, not about the lack of safety culture) are incorrect. And if they are in fact incorrect, well . .. it would be pedantic to divert into points about the employment law principles and process. But that said, perhaps it isn't so curious after all why his attorneys did not file a retaliation claim with the Department of Labor (which, as all know, other whistleblowers did file).