Boeing has achieved the unthinkable this week: It managed to fall even deeper into crisis.
Adding to an already miserable start to 2024, Boeing stood accused Tuesday of routinely ignoring a whistleblower’s complaints about the allegedly critically flawed manufacturing process for its 787 Dreamliner planes. The whistleblower claimed Boeing retaliated against him and put him on the 777 unit as punishment. That’s when, he says, he found even more production problems.
Boeing strongly denies the claims and says it is confident in the safety of its aircraft. Still, the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it would investigate — adding to a growing list of federal probes into the beleaguered company, including a criminal investigation. And next week, a Senate subcommittee will hear testimony about the whistleblower’s case and will presumably air more of Boeing’s dirty laundry in public.
True. Boeings prior reputation is what made it a household name. However, ever since the 737 Max incidents, the way they are handling things just showcases the sorry state of affairs they have in place in the pursuit of profits. And silencing whistleblowers with assassinations isn’t doing them any good.
I don’t know why FAA still hasn’t revoked their ability to self certify and force them to certify with external companies like the rest of the industry.
The FAA needs to do some house cleaning. It sounds like they had an agency-to-corporate pipeline in place where there was a culture of buttering up regulators with the promise of better jobs in exchange for favorable regulatory enforcement.
I believe FAA is a captured agency as well, like just about every government agency at this point.