Boeing whistle-blower says production was riddled with problems

Ahead of his testimony before a congressional committee tomorrow, a former senior manager at Boeing is speaking about the concerns he had with the production of the 737 Max airplane.

Four months before the first of two deadly crashes of a 737 Max, the manager, Ed Pierson, approached an executive at the company, saying he was worried that the plane was riddled with production problems and potentially unsafe, David Gelles of the NYT reports.

The Max has been grounded since March, shortly after the second crash.

Employees at the Renton, Wash., factory where the 737 Max is produced were overworked, exhausted and making mistakes, Mr. Pierson told Mr. Gelles. Damaged parts, missing tools and incomplete instructions were preventing planes from being built on time. Executives were pressuring workers to complete planes despite staff shortages and a chaotic factory floor.

“Frankly right now all my internal warning bells are going off,” Mr. Pierson said in an email to the head of the 737 program last year that was reviewed by The NYT. “And for the first time in my life, I’m sorry to say that I’m hesitant about putting my family on a Boeing airplane.”

Mr. Pierson called on Boeing to shut down the Max production line last year. But the company kept producing planes and did not make major changes in response to his complaints. During the time when Mr. Pierson said the Renton facility was in disarray, it built the two planes that crashed and killed 346 people.

“The suggestion by Mr. Pierson of a link between his concerns and the recent Max accidents is completely unfounded,” a Boeing spokesman, Gordon Johndroe, said in a statement.