Ed Pierson, an ex-Boeing senior manager and whistleblower, criticized the company’s executives on Friday for not heeding his warnings about potential quality control issues.
Boeing aircraft experienced several safety problems this past week alone and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) found several possible concerns with the company’s safety operations in a February report mandated by Congress after crashes in 2018 and 2019 that resulted in the deaths of 346 people. Pierson blamed top executives and said they need to leave the company in an interview on NewsNation’s “Elizabeth Vargas Reports.”
“I started seeing a lot of problems in the factory … in 2018 and we just saw a deterioration in quality and meanwhile, airplanes are being rushed out the door. There’s huge pressure from corporate headquarters to get these planes out the door and employees are tired, fatigued, they’re making mistakes, there’s not enough of them, parts issues, all kinds of issues. It was absolute chaos,” Pierson said. “I tried internally to ring the bell and get the leadership team to take action, but they didn’t want to hear it.”
WATCH:
One issue at the company is a disconnect with the company’s senior management and lower members of the organization on safety culture, the FAA report found.
“My number one recommendation is that the C-suite needs to go,” Pierson asserted on NewsNation’s “Elizabeth Vargas Reports.” “I mean, they are crushing the company. They are allowing one bad thing after the next, and they just keep making a bunch of broken promises and it’s not happening and the proof is in the pudding.”
There was also possible retaliation that could occur when employees reported safety issues, like adjusting salaries and furlough rankings, the report found. There were also human factors insufficiently considered in aviation safety and inadequate pilot input on aircraft design.
An Alaska Airlines flight involving a Boeing 737 Max 9 experienced an emergency door plug getting ripped off the aircraft, resulting in an emergency landing. The incident resulted in an additional federal probe by the National Transportation Safety Board, which discovered the jet had no bolts installed ahead of the accident.
A United Airlines Boeing 737 on Friday underwent a gear failure, resulting in the aircraft crashing off a runway at George Bush Airport in Houston, Texas, Express reported. Another Boeing aircraft carrying 235 passengers headed to Japan made an emergency landing Thursday at Los Angeles International Airport as it lost one of its six tires shortly after taking off from San Francisco, according to the New York Post.
Boeing did not immediately respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.
Jason Cohen on March 9, 2024
