April 15 (Reuters) - Boeing ( BA ) said on Monday it has
not found fatigue cracks on in-service 787 jets that have gone
through heavy maintenance, as the planemaker defended the
twin-aisle aircraft program ahead of a U.S. Senate hearing on
Wednesday.
Last week, a Boeing ( BA ) whistleblower alleged that the company
dismissed safety concerns about the assembly of its 787 and 777
jets that fly international routes. The whistleblower, Boeing ( BA )
quality engineer Sam Salehpour, is set to testify in the Senate
hearing on the company's safety culture.
Salehpour has claimed that Boeing ( BA ) failed to adequately shim,
or use a thin piece of material to fill tiny gaps in a
manufactured product, an omission that could cause premature
fatigue failure over time in some areas of the Boeing 787
Dreamliner.
His claims, which are being investigated by the U.S. Federal
Aviation Administration (FAA), include remarks that he saw
workers "jumping on the pieces of the airplane to get them to
align."
Boeing ( BA ) has been grappling with a full-blown safety crisis
that has undermined its reputation following a Jan. 5 mid-air
panel blowout on a 737 MAX single-aisle plane.
On a call with reporters on Monday, two senior Boeing ( BA )
officials said there were zero airframe fatigue findings among
the near 700 in-service Dreamliner jets that have undertaken
heavy maintenance inspections after six years and 12 years.
"All these results have been shared with the FAA," said
Steve Chisholm, Boeing's ( BA ) chief engineer, mechanical and
structural engineering.
Boeing ( BA ) halted deliveries of the 787 widebody jet for more
than a year until August 2022 as the FAA investigated quality
problems and manufacturing flaws.
In 2021, Boeing ( BA ) said some 787 airplanes had shims that were
not the proper size and some aircraft had areas that did not
meet skin-flatness specifications.
The 787, which was launched in 2004, had a specification of
five-thousandths of an inch gap allowance within a five-inch
area, or "the thickness of a human hair," said Lisa Fahl, vice
president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes airplane programs
engineering.
She said reports of workers jumping on plane parts were "not
part of our process."