All 787 Dreamliners should be grounded, Boeing whistleblower says

globalnews.ca:

Boeing whistleblower is urging the planemaker to ground all 787 Dreamliners currently in operation around the world, warning that the long-haul jets could “fall apart at the joints.”Sam Salehpour, a quality engineer at Boeing, went public with his concerns about the Boeing 787 and 777 jets last week. In an exclusive TV interview with NBC Nightly News, Salehpour doubled down on his allegations and called for all Dreamliners to be pulled from service and checked for small gaps in the fuselage.“It’s as serious as I have ever seen in my lifetime,” Salehpour told NBC’s Lester Holt, adding that he would not put his family on a 787 jet.“The entire fleet worldwide, as far as I’m concerned right now, needs attention.

And the attention is, you need to check your gaps and make sure that you don’t have potential for premature failure.”Salehpour claims that Boeing took shortcuts while building the 787 and 777 jets to save money and reduce bottlenecks during the assembly process. He says sections of the main body, or fuselage, of the 787 Dreamliner are not fastened together properly and that little gaps exist where the parts are joined.

Under the stress of repeated flying, the fuselage could break apart mid-air, he warned.“The plane will fall apart at the joints,” he told Holt on Tuesday.When Salehpour initially went public with his concerns, he said he saw Boeing mechanics using excessive force to push sections of the fuselage together “to make it appear like the gaps didn’t exist,” during 787 assembly. Under normal manufacturing procedures, small pieces of metal, called shims, are inserted into gaps to fill space.