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Sam Mohawk, one Boeing employee of 13 yearsalleged that some factory workers were taking defective aircraft parts from storage and installing them on planes to keep production going. Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers have faced staggering supply chain problems since the pandemic.
A Boeing quality researcher is doubling down on claims he made earlier this year that the aerospace manufacturer’s use of defective parts could make planes less safe or lead to malfunctions. Sam Mohawk, a Boeing employee for 13 years. Alleged employees have secretly resorted to installing defective parts on planes due to a supply shortage, leaving bad units undetected in factory storage and possibly on planes loaded with passengers and cargo.
“There is so much chaos in that factory that there is a desperation for parts because we are having problems with our parts suppliers,” Mohawk told CBS News in an interview published Sunday evening. “In order to get the airplane built and out the door in time, I think unfortunately some of those parts were recycled back into the airplanes to continue building the airplane and not to stop production.”
Boeing factories store compromised units in a “parts jail,” Mohawk said, where the company can track the items to keep them out of production. Because pandemic-damaged supply pipelines prevented aircraft manufacturers from ramping up aircraft production, some Boeing factory workers allegedly circumvented protocol to remove items from the parts jail, unbeknownst to Mohawk’s team, and installed them on aircraft.
In addition to bolts and smaller units, workers also took important items such as rudders, which control the control of an aircraft. According to Mohawk, 42 defective or non-compliant rudders have disappeared, evidence that the practice of taking parts under lock and key is widespread.
“I think it happens repeatedly,” Mohawk said. “We have thousands of missing parts.”
Boeing said Fortune it completed two investigations into Mohawk’s claims, including interviewing employees and touring the factory, but found no evidence that defective parts ended up in Boeing planes. The company said Mohawk’s claims had no impact on aircraft safety.
“This is an example of how Boeing listens to employees and thoroughly evaluates their employees
concerns about safety and quality,” the statement said.
Boeing will have a long list of resolutions after a 2024 marked by disaster. The aerospace manufacturer’s terrible year began when a door plug was torn in flight from an Alaska Airlines 737 Max plane, sparking a series of investigations into Boeing’s safety culture and other aircraft compromises.
The aerospace manufacturer is still unable to return to its full production capacity, which has worsened the situation delayed deliveries of jet aircraft to airlines, with production stopped of its 737 Max and other models at its major factories during a 54-day strike over workers’ wages and insurance costs. Shortly after the Alaska Airlines disaster, the FAA capped 737 Max production at 38 aircraft per month until the manufacturer could prove that it had made significant and lasting changes to its quality assurance protocols.
The possible installation of bad parts on jetliners could have huge consequences for Boeing and its passengers, as it means those planes may not last the usual 30-year lifespan. If the vehicles are not properly examined, a “catastrophic event” could be imminent.
“It’s like Russian roulette, you know?” Mohawk said. “You don’t know if it’s going to happen or not.”
The core of Boeing employees’ concerns is according to other whistleblowersis the priority that puts productivity over safety. It’s a sentiment that Mohawk says has contributed to workers’ urgency to keep production running, even at the expense of safety.
“The idea is to keep those planes moving, keep that line moving at all costs,” Mohawk said.
Mohawk made similar accusations in Junealleging in a complaint to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that Boeing lost as many as 400 bad 737 Max parts last year. The company also allegedly deleted the records of many of those parts from its catalog system and “intentionally” hid those poorly stored, damaged parts from the FAA before a scheduled facility inspection, he alleged.
Boeing said its data systems track non-compliant parts and that none of these items were present on its planes.
The company also appears to have made changes to the way it approaches quality assurance. FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker said last week that the manufacturer has already taken steps to “reset.” After the strike, it took a month for the company to resume production to ensure employees were properly trained and to allow the supply chain to keep up with the increase in production.
“In previous strikes, they just came back and started production,” he says told NBC News. “This time they have been very systematic according to the principles of safety management, so that is a positive development.”
This story originally ran Fortune.com
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