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Former Boeing Inspector Alleges ‘Scrap’ Parts Ended Up On Assembly Lines
A former Boeing quality-control manager claims that for years, workers at the company’s 787 Dreamliner facility in Everett, Washington, routinely retrieved parts deemed unsuitable for flight from an internal scrap yard and reassembled them on factory assembly lines.
Merle Meyers, a 30-year Boeing veteran, described to CNN an elaborate off-the-books practice used by Boeing managers at the Everett factory to meet production deadlines, including the removal of damaged and improper parts from the company’s scrapyard, storehouses, and loading docks.
Former Boeing Inspector Alleges ‘Scrap’ Parts Ended Up On Assembly Lines
This year, several whistleblowers have raised concerns about Boeing factory lapses, including an official federal complaint from a current employee alleging that Boeing concealed potentially defective parts from Federal Aviation Administration inspectors and that some of those parts may have ended up in aircraft.
This comes on the heels of a string of public safety issues that have shaken the firm.
Meyers argues that the errors he witnessed were intentional, organized attempts to defy quality control mechanisms and meet rigorous production timetables.
Meyers claims that for more than a decade, starting in the early 2000s, about 50,000 parts “escaped” quality control and were utilized to manufacture airplanes. These parts range from minor components like screws to more complicated assemblies like wing flaps. For example, a single Boeing 787 Dreamliner contains almost 2.3 million pieces.
According to Meyers, most rejected parts were often painted red to indicate they were unfit for assembly lines. However, in certain circumstances, this did not prevent them from being loaded onto planes being constructed, he claimed.
“It’s a huge problem,” Meyers told CNN. “A core requirement of a quality system is to keep bad parts and good parts apart.”
Airplanes are highly engineered equipment with far greater safety standards than trains or automobiles. Their components, materials, and production procedures are heavily regulated.
Meyers, whose job was to uncover quality problems at Boeing, claims he was forced out last year and was given a severance settlement he cannot discuss due to a confidentiality agreement he signed with Boeing.
Since leaving the business, Meyers has interacted with current Boeing employees. He believes that while employees no longer remove parts from the scrapyard, the practice of putting other unauthorized parts in assembly lines remains.
“Now they’re back to taking parts of body sections – everything – right when it arrives at the Everett site, bypassing quality, going right to the airplane,” Meyers told me.
According to company correspondence dating back years, Meyers frequently raised the matter to Boeing’s corporate investigations team, citing what he calls flagrant violations of Boeing’s safety guidelines. However, Meyers claims that investigators consistently failed to enforce those restrictions, including dismissing “eye witness observations and the hard work done to ensure the safety of future passengers and crew,” he said in an internal 2022 email shared with CNN.
Meyers has also expressed concerns about Boeing’s quality difficulties to federal investigators, a Senate committee, and the New York Times.
Boeing did not deny Meyers’ claims in a CNN response. The corporation stated that it investigates “all allegations of improper behavior, such as the unauthorized movement of parts or the mishandling of documents,” and makes corrections as needed.
A swirl of controversy.
Meyers’ charges come as Boeing is embroiled in a scandal over its safety culture, including a criminal inquiry into whether it misled the FAA during the 737 Max’s 2017 approval. Two 737 Max crashes killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019. As CNN reported over the weekend, the Justice Department is negotiating an agreement with Boeing to address potential criminal culpability.
In January, a 737 Max’s door stopper blew off in mid-flight, provoking a wave of intensive scrutiny of the aircraft manufacturer, including federal and congressional inquiries. Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun has stated that he will step down before the end of the year. To address its safety concerns, Boeing has agreed to buy supplier Spirit AeroSystems.
Since January, other whistleblowers have come forward with new charges against Boeing.
Sam Mohawk, a current Boeing quality investigator, filed an official complaint last month, citing “a number of non-compliant parts making their way back to the airplanes for installation.” A Senate subcommittee probing Boeing made his complaint to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration publicly available.
According to Mohawk’s complaint, the disappearance of nonconforming parts continues. “Boeing is still losing parts to this day,” his legal complaint states.
This week, a different whistleblower, Richard Cuevas, expressed concerns that Boeing and its key supplier, Spirit Aerosystems, utilized compromised parts and made alterations to “reduce bottlenecks in production and speed up production and delivery.”
Pulled from the scrapyard.
Boeing management’s pressure to keep production lines flowing is no secret. The 245-page House investigation report into the 737 Max deadly crashes includes a full chapter titled “Production Pressure.” Following the January 5 door plug blowout on a 737 Max, the FAA limited Boeing’s production line speeds.
Meyers recalls a high-pressure situation at the Everett factory, where assembly teams competed to find the necessary parts.
Meyers claims that after hours, employees would ask security guards to unlock doors and slip parts out of supply rooms or take newly delivered components that awaited quality tests by Meyers’ team. Similar parts meant for a different airplane model were available for the taking.
According to paperwork Meyers shared with CNN, in the early 2000s, Boeing personnel began collecting parts from the company’s scrapyard in Auburn, Washington, roughly an hour south of the nearly 100-acre industrial complex where Dreamliners were manufactured. According to Meyers, nonconforming items are only sent to the reclamation yard once rejected.
Meyers states that by 2002, staff at the reclamation yard were anxious that they would be held liable if scrap pieces were later discovered on an aircraft. So they requested staff to sign off on the removals, but their form was not an official Boeing document, so the removal was never recorded in the company’s quality management database.
Former Boeing Inspector Alleges ‘Scrap’ Parts Ended Up On Assembly Lines
“These are bootleg forms that are not Boeing authorized,” Meyers confirmed. “The procurement organization would go down to our scrap reclamation yard and intimidate the employees there and say we need these parts bad.”
Lack of enforcement
Meyers claims he routinely flagged infractions for investigation but deemed the company’s attempts to investigate them inadequate.
“Their investigations are about analyzing excuses by process violators, and not taking action against those committing compliance violations,” Meyers stated in a 2002 email to Boeing’s corporate HR.
According to Boeing, Meyers worked on a quality team that “plays an important role in identifying issues, improving processes, and strengthening compliance in our factories.”
Meyers claims his Boeing superiors did not know how to deal with employees who had problems and that after decades with the company, he was eventually given a list of management complaints about his performance and offered a vague option to improve – or take a monetary compensation and quit.
“I was given a list of things to correct – my behaviors and my practices as a manager,” he told me. “It seemed like a personal development program…” But there was a financial incentive – or you could take the money and quit.”
Meyers stated that he never planned to become a whistleblower, but is now working with anyone who ask, including a Senate subcommittee investigating Boeing, to build momentum for reform.
SOURCE – CNN