The agency investigated concerns raised by a Boeing whistleblower, who said the company took shortcuts in manufacturing the 787 and the 777.
The 787 assembly line in Everett. (Photo: AirlineGeeks | Ryan Ewing)
A lawyer representing a Boeing whistleblower is calling on the FAA to release a report on the 787 Dreamliner prompted by safety concerns her client raised over a year ago.
In a letter to the agency’s acting administrator Chris Rocheleau, Debra S. Katz of Katz Banks Kumin said she was told in December that the FAA had completed its inquiry and expressed thanks to her client, a Boeing quality engineer, for coming forward. The report was supposed to be “issued immediately,” but six months later, it still has not been made public, Katz wrote.
“No one can truly understand the risks resulting from Boeing’s manufacturing processes until the FAA releases its investigative report,” the letter states. “The FAA must immediately publish the report without any further delay.”
The report will carry added weight now that the 787 has experienced its first fatal crash, although the accident’s investigation remains ongoing. On Thursday, a Dreamliner operated by Air India crashed shortly after takeoff in Ahmedabad, India, with 242 passengers on board. Over 260 people were killed, including passengers and students at a medical college that the airplane crashed into. Only one person on the airplane survived.
Katz’s letter was first reported by The New York Times on Thursday.
Katz represents Sam Salehpour, a veteran engineer who claims Boeing took shortcuts in the production of the Dreamliner and the 777. He brought his concerns to the FAA in January 2024, and the agency opened an investigation based on information he provided the following March.
About nine months later, Katz said, an FAA investigator told her the final report on the matter was finished. Though he couldn’t get into specifics, “we understood from his comments that many of Mr. Salehpour’s concerns had been substantiated,” she wrote.
The FAA had not responded to Katz’s letter as of Friday morning.
The 787 has faced years of scrutiny over technical issues.
The FAA paused deliveries of the aircraft for nearly a year between 2021 and 2022 and again briefly in 2023 over problems with various components, including paper-thin gaps in the aircraft’s body. The agency also revoked Boeing’s ability to inspect and issue safety certifications for the Dreamliner.
Whistleblowers who spoke before Congress, including Salehpour, pointed to alleged shoddy practices at the manufacturer’s facilities, including one in North Charleston, South Carolina, where the 787 is assembled.
Boeing has disputed those accounts and said exhaustive inspections of its aircraft did not support the whistleblowers’ claims. The company also said it tested the 787’s airframe with stress levels far beyond what it would experience in its normal service life and found no evidence of fatigue.
The crash in Ahmedabad is India’s worst aviation disaster since 1996, and the first fatal crash for a mainline Air India flight since 1985.
India’s Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau is taking the lead in investigating the cause of the crash. The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board and the U.K.’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch are also sending teams to India to assist.
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