Air India Crash: ‘Pattern Of Issues At Boeing’ Says Whistleblower Ed Pierson

A former senior Boeing manager has flagged a “bothersome pattern of issues” with the company’s aircraft, including the 787 Dreamliner, days after an Air India plane crashed in Ahmedabad, killing 274 people, according to NDTV report.

“I can tell you our foundation has been monitoring them closely… not just the 787s but other planes… and we’ve seen a bothersome pattern of issues we don’t believe are being addressed in a timely manner,” Ed Pierson told NDTV in an interview.

Pierson, who previously testified before the US Congress about safety lapses in the 737 Max programme, now leads the Foundation for Aviation Safety.

His comments follow the crash of Air India flight AI-171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner, which went down 36 seconds after take-off from Ahmedabad while en route to London. All but one of the 242 people on board were killed, along with at least 31 people on the ground.

Flight AI-171 also marked the first fatal accident involving a 787 since the aircraft entered commercial service in 2009.

“Until we get the processing of the data recorder, we are not going to have the information we need to make a definitive conclusion,” Pierson told NDTV.

“There is a lot of information we don’t know about. The thing that really jumped out at me was a recent report of a passenger who said they had flown a couple hours before that flight which crashed. He said none of the systems were working, referring to the air-conditioning and other systems on the plane. There are backup systems, so those systems should always be working. So that’s a little bit of a concern. We are not saying definitively but it is something that would need to be investigated,” he said.

The aircraft’s black box has been recovered and is being analysed. The government has also set up a high-level committee to examine the crash and recommend safety measures.

Pierson also referred to Boeing engineer Sam Salehpour, who last year told US lawmakers he faced retaliation after raising red flags about the 787’s manufacturing process.

“That’s right… during testimony (to the US Congress in April last year) Salehpour, who is the engineer with Boeing who reported problems, i.e., structural issues, and he provided pretty startling information about employees forcing parts to fit together (by jumping on them, according to some whistleblowers) when you aren’t supposed to force them together,” Pierson said.

“He expressed concern and apparently did everything he could, from inside the company, to raise these concerns and wasn’t getting an adequate response. So he felt it was necessary to become a whistleblower.”

Asked if the concerns flagged by Salehpour could have been present in other 787s, Pierson told NDTV "it is possible..."

"The problems he identified.. apparently the planes were being built like that for a long time," he said.