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I've written about this before, in relation to the 737 MAX, I'll just post it verbatim: --- In 1997, Boeing merged with McDonnel Douglas. This led to some cha

• tovej 6y ago
  Rereading the sources, I think Pierson's statement tells the story of current conditions the best. Pierson tried to stop production at a 737 facility due to safety concerns, he was shut down hard by top management. Here's some highlights from the document: Discussion with Campbell: "To address the worsening factory conditions, I recommended that Boeing “[s]hut down the production line to allow our team time to regroup so we can safely finish the planes.” In response, Mr. Campbell assured me that “safety and quality is number one and schedule come [sic] after that,” but he did not acknowledge, let alone act on, my recommendation that Boeing shut down the line to allow workers time to safely address the production backlog. Over the following weeks, factory conditions worsened. In early July, I requested an in-person meeting with Mr. Campbell to further discuss my concerns. When we met on July 18, I gave multiple examples of process breakdowns, explained the numerous metrics indicating a decline in quality, and reiterated my recommendation that Boeing shut down the line to address product and worker-safety risks. In response, Mr. Campbell told me, “We can’t do that. I can’t do that.” I pushed back, explaining that I had seen operations in the military shut down over less substantial safety issues, and those organizations had national security responsibilities. Mr. Campbell responded tersely, “The military isn’t a profit-making organization.”" Discussion with Luttig: "On January 21, I again spoke with Mr. Luttig about my concerns. Mr. Luttig said that all the 737s in service had received thorough post-manufacturing inspections and that Boeing had not seen any issues with the other planes in the 737 fleet. Mr. Luttig then asked what I would do to investigate my concerns. I recommended that Boeing establish a cross-functional team of subject matter experts who could review data for potential quality and engineering risks and interview employees on the ground about the health of the Renton factory. In response to this proposal, Mr. Luttig recommended that they add Assistant General Counsel Padraic Fennelly to the conversation. The following day, I spoke with Mr. Luttig and Mr. Fennelly over the phone and once again reiterated my concerns and recommendations. Shortly after the call began, however, I came to believe Mr. Luttig and Mr. Fennelly were more interested in placating me than seriously investigating the factory conditions. Disappointed with the call, I promptly documented my core recommendation by email: “Forming a cross functional [Non-Advocate Review] team to conduct an objective, comprehensive assessment of what occurred last year and the current state of the program . . . . This assessment would need to include the analysis of production related data (e.g., quality data) and talking with employees.” See Exhibit 5 (emails exchanged with general counsel). I stressed that investigating the Renton factory conditions was “obviously an ongoing urgent matter—it was urgent last summer [and] made even more urgent this fall.” Id. Two weeks later, having heard nothing further, I sent another email to Mr. Luttig and Mr. Fennelly, setting out in painstaking detail the concerns I had been raising since June 2018: employee fatigue and schedule pressure, aggressive leadership communication, mounting quality defects (including numerous functional test and Electrical Wiring Interconnect System problems), staffing constraints, process deviations, communications breakdowns, and others. I emphasized that “the sheer volume of these issues highlights the considerable & unnecessary risk the company was (is still?) taking to meet ever increasing airplane production rates and delivery schedules” and that “production mistakes may have been made with this airplane and potentially others.” Id. I also felt Boeing had misled the public about the state of 737 production: “Record numbers of airplanes delivered makes for good headlines, but they can belie the reality of production health.” Id. On February 14, Mr. Fennelly responded that Boeing had considered my information but had “seen nothing from any of [its data] sources that would suggest the existence of embedded quality or safety issues.” Id."