On July 5th, Caixin News Agency (Editor Niu Zhanlin) reported that the Boeing scandal is still ongoing. In addition to the inability of the "interstellar" spacecraft to return to Earth, another "whistleblower" has come forward to accuse the company of intentionally using defective parts in its aircraft.
Merle Meyers, former quality control manager of Boeing, recently revealed that for many years, workers at Boeing's 787 Dreamliner factory in Everett, Washington often removed defective parts from internal waste yards, put them back on the factory assembly line, and finally assembled them onto the new aircraft.
Mayers has been working at Boeing for over 30 years, and his mother is also an inspector at Boeing with extensive work experience.
After seeing that the Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft experienced an air door stopper detachment in January this year and a series of subsequent accidents, Meyers also had the idea of reporting Boeing.
Since the beginning of this year, a series of whistleblowers have accused Boeing of errors, claiming that Boeing had many safety issues during the aircraft manufacturing process, including a former employee complaining to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that Boeing had concealed potentially defective components.
Another whistleblower, Richard Cuevas, stated last week that Boeing and its major supplier, Sharp Aviation Systems, used damaged components to reduce production bottlenecks and accelerate production and delivery speeds.
Mayers claimed that the mistakes he witnessed were intentional and organized actions aimed at disrupting quality control processes in an effort to keep up with demanding production plans.
He pointed out that over a decade, he estimated that there were approximately 50000 non-conforming parts& quot; Escape; quot; Quality control was implemented and used to manufacture aircraft, which were then delivered to airlines. These parts range from screws to complex components such as wings and flaps.
This approach "puts people's lives in danger, not only passengers but also crew members, many of which are critical components of flight that later return to the production system."
Mayers stated that he has repeatedly reported this issue to company investigators, pointing out his alleged blatant violation of Boeing safety regulations. He wrote in an internal email in 2022:& quot; But investigators often fail to comply with these regulations, even ignoring the observations of witnesses and the arduous work done to ensure the safety of future passengers and crew members& amp;quot;
Mayers added that he believes he was forced to leave Boeing last year and is concerned that Boeing still has safety issues. "I think Boeing needs to punish and dismiss those who openly violate procedures and endanger public flight safety. This is a huge problem, and a core requirement of the quality system is to separate bad parts from good parts."
Boeing's response
Boeing has not denied Mayers' allegations. The company stated that it encourages employees to speak frankly and stated that in order to ensure product safety, it will investigate all allegations of misconduct, such as unauthorized movement of parts or improper file handling, and make improvements at appropriate times.
But recently, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun admitted that Boeing had retaliated against whistleblowers internally, but he could not provide an exact number.
In addition, two Boeing whistleblowers have mysteriously died this year. On March 9th, John Barnett, a former senior Boeing employee who had repeatedly exposed manufacturing issues with Boeing aircraft, was found dead in a truck parked in the hotel parking lot. On April 30th, the second whistleblower, Joshua Dean, suddenly fell ill and passed away at the age of only 45. These two deaths have once again drawn attention from the outside world to Boeing's quality issues and internal scandals.