As the journey of Air India flight 171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, ends in tragedy, a Boeing engineer's earlier warning about the flaws in the 777 and 787 Dreamliners comes to focus.
Sam Salehpour, a quality engineer at Boeing, came forward in 2021 and 2022 accusing the aircraft company of cutting corners in the production of the 787 Dreamliner, which allowed "faulty engineering and faulty evaluation of the data, which has allowed potentially defective parts and installations in 787 fleets."
He claimed to have noticed issues with the aircraft’s shimming—the process of filling in gaps between segments of an aircraft’s fuselage. The gaps were very small, just the width of a human hair but Salehpour alleged that "details the size of a human hair can be a matter of life and death" while operating at 35,000 feet.
He accused such gaps can cause fatigue cracks over repeated flights. "They were simply pushing misaligned pieces together with excessive pressure," Salehpour said, adding that he found gaps exceeding the specification 98.7% of the time in the inspection data from 29 aircraft.
He also alleged that he witnessed more unsafe practices on the production line for the 777. " I literally saw people jumping on pieces of the airplane to get them to align. I called it the Tarzan effect," he alleged.
Salehpour filed a formal complaint to the Federal Aviation Administration in this regard and the FAA interviewed Salehpour as part of its investigation into his claims.
Boeing however disputed Salehpour’s concerns about the 787. "These claims about the structural integrity of the 787 are inaccurate and do not represent the comprehensive work Boeing has done to ensure the quality and long-term safety of the aircraft," the company said in a statement.
There were also other reports about the Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner model coming under the radar due to repeated diversions of a Dreamliner with registration code N819AN due to hydraulic leaks and flap malfunctions, leading to multiple flight cancellations in a span of just 25 days earlier this year. The American Airlines flight had to be diverted four times in different cities between January 7 and February 1 this year.
