‘I Am At Peace’: Boeing Whistleblower Gets Emotional Telling Marshall About Threats He’s Received

5 months ago

During a House Homeland Security Committee hearing earlier this month, Sen. Roger Marshall (R-KS) questioned Boeing whistleblower Sam Salehpour and other witnesses about the “broken safety culture” at Boeing.

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00:00 Senator Johnson. We're going to go to Senator Marshall, then Senator Hassan, and Senator Hawley.

00:05 Great. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Salopore, you've described several significant events

00:12 since you came forward with your claims. One was the nail in the tire. You described your life

00:17 was being threatened. Do you feel that this style of retaliation against you has been part

00:22 of Boeing's efforts to silence and prevent you from sharing your story?

00:28 I think the retaliation, somebody even was calling me on my personal phone,

00:32 you know, time after time. You know, this is my personal phone, you know.

00:37 What were they saying? Well, my boss was calling me there, and for 40 minutes he kind of berated

00:44 me and chewed me out. I have a work phone that he can use, but he's calling you on your personal

00:51 phone, and it reminds me of, you know, people who they stalk people or something like that. They

00:56 call you on your personal phone to let you know that they know where you live, they know where you

01:01 are, and they can hurt you. And, you know, after the threats and after this, you know, it's like,

01:07 you know, it really scares me. Believe me. But I am at peace. You know, if something happens to me,

01:14 I am at peace because I feel like by coming forward, I will be saving a lot of lives,

01:20 and I'm at peace. Whatever happens, it happens. Well, we certainly do appreciate you coming

01:25 forward and certainly the brave and courage it takes for all of you to do this. Do you think

01:31 that there was a culture of retaliation against whistleblowers at Boeing? Absolutely. And also,

01:41 there's a culture of when you address the quality issues, and that's all I have done. I haven't

01:48 made it personal. All I've done is said, hey, you know, we are not measuring the gaps properly.

01:54 We are not shimming the gaps properly. Then, you know, you get threatened and this and that.

02:00 All I'm trying to say is the system needs to be changed. Do you still have your job?

02:05 I have my job. The only reason I have my job because I had my attorneys, we filed for the

02:11 whistleblower system before I spoke up this time. What's it like when you go back to work?

02:19 Well, last time, if you can think of it, I went to a meeting on the 777 and I brought up my concern

02:27 in that meeting to say that the way we build in that airplane, it does not correlate to what the

02:33 design of the airplane is. Because of that, we are resulting in a lot of misfares, you know,

02:40 misfares and a lot of problems. You know, after 300 plus airplanes, we should be able to

02:47 make that airplane. My boss sent somebody to the meeting, pulled me out of the meeting, and

02:53 called me on the phone and says I threw the person under the bus by asking the question,

03:01 what are we doing to make our design compatible with our bill system to overcome these, you know,

03:08 mislocated holes and this and that. Then he says, what was my intention, you know,

03:13 and really berated me. A week later, he was going to talk about that again. I thought, you know,

03:20 it's resolved. A week later, he was talking to me about that. You know, why should you even be

03:27 prosecuted for something that, you know, all you're doing is saying, hey, the design that we

03:34 used to have, we went to determine assembly, it's not working. What can we do? Have you guys thought

03:40 about anything to bring that so that they are compatible? >> So your intention was to build a

03:45 safe airplane. >> Absolutely. Not by force. >> I want to try to understand this. The diagram

03:52 that you all supplied us, this is a Boeing 787. >> Yes. >> And you're talking about where these

03:58 joints come together. >> Yes. I'm talking about the one on the most forward between, yeah, right

04:03 there. And one on the aft. That's a 4143, no, the one this way. >> This one. >> Yeah, right. >>

04:09 Between that one and the nose. >> That's a 4143, it's a major joint. And then one on the aft. >> So

04:15 instead of shimming them, they're basically just using force to bring them together. And you're

04:20 concerned that it hurts the composite. >> Well, it just violates every one of our common practices.

04:28 >> Okay. >> Because you don't force stuff together. Because when you force stuff together,

04:33 you increase the stress concentration on that. If you think of a paper clip, if you bend it back and

04:41 forth, after a little while, it breaks. >> Yeah. You know, speaking of action, that's what I want

04:45 to talk next about is action. I'm not sure if any of you are familiar with NIAR at Wichita State

04:51 University, the National Institute of Aviation Research. They specialize in aerospace R&D,

04:57 including composite advanced materials. And they do wind tunnel testing, where they would take an

05:03 entire wing, an entire fuselage from a plane like this and stress test it. Mr. Jacobson, do you feel

05:10 like that type of stress -- I want to get the -- we have different opinions, but that's where I would

05:15 have confidence, and America would have confidence if there was stress testing, take some of these

05:19 randomly and do that stress testing. Or maybe it's already been done. I don't know. >> Well,

05:24 I'm not a structure specialist, so I can't really comment on the details of any of those sort of,

05:31 you know, hypotheticals. But, I mean, in general, all of this, there's design, then there's testing,

05:40 there's quite a process, and you can't violate any part of that process. If you violate -- >> Okay.

05:48 I'm sorry, but is anybody else familiar with NIAR and that type of stress testing, where you put

05:52 them and do wind tunnel testing on these? I just think that that's the action that I would have

05:56 confidence in, as a scientist who have tested thousands of jets and airplanes and are experts

06:02 in composite to see exactly if this is a challenge or not. I think that would be a great answer to

06:10 this question. That's action. Go ahead, Mr. Salazar. >> One thing that I want to -- you know,

06:14 the issue that we're talking about is pressurizing the fuselage from the inside. You know, when you

06:21 pressurize and depressurize, basically, you know, that's -- we call it a flight cycle. Every time

06:26 you go up and you come down, that's one flight cycle. >> I'm sure that we can reproduce that

06:30 at NIAR. I think it's a great point, though. And lastly, my last question is,

06:34 it feels like the FAA and the DOT has dropped the ball as well here, though.

06:39 Mr. Pearson, go ahead. And this is the action. >> I'm sorry. It was the DOT and the --

06:47 >> FAA. >> Yeah, 100%. People don't understand. The FAA is a subordinate agency to the Department

06:54 of Transportation. And as the FAA has been struggling with revolving leadership and

06:58 everything else, there's been numerous opportunities for the Department of Transportation to get

07:03 involved and engaged. And what we've seen from them is nothing. They just kind of are on the

07:08 sidelines. >> So to me, the action would be to ask the staff to sit down with the FAA and the DOT

07:14 and the people and some type of report. We can't bring them in here for another six-hour hearing,

07:20 but I would love to see a little bit more report on how they would defend themselves. Thank you,

07:24 Mr. Chairman. >> Senator, if I could just add, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to interrupt, but we met

07:28 with the head of the FAA and the deputy of Secretary of Transportation in March 8th,

07:35 and our foundation did. And we met with them, and we went through 35 problems, and we made

07:41 recommendations to each one, and we said we offered to assist whatever we could because we

07:44 want them to be successful. But they need to get in the game, is all I can tell you. Thank you.

07:50 >> Thank you, Senator Marshall. I might just point out, we've been in touch with the FAA.

07:57 We hope that they will appear at a hearing as well. And they've issued a scathing report

08:06 detailing the findings of an expert panel review of Boeing's management practices.

08:12 The panel found, for example, "a lack of awareness of safety-related metrics at all levels of the

08:21 organization." So I'm hoping that the FAA will be cooperative and aggressive in our continuing

08:34 investigation as well.

‘I Am At Peace’: Boeing Whistleblower Gets Emotional Telling Marshall About Threats He’s Received

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