Boeing Engineer Says 787 Fleet Worldwide Needs Attention

A Boeing engineer said that the company should ground its 787 Dreamliner aircraft worldwide to ensure that the jetliners aren’t showing signs of premature failure.

“The entire fleet worldwide, as far as I’m concerned right now, needs attention,” Sam Salehpour, who had worked on the plane, told NBC News’ Tom Costello in an interview that aired Tuesday. Salehpour added that it’s necessary for the company to “check your gaps to make sure that you don’t have potential for premature failure.”

Salehpour is scheduled to speak to a Senate panel Wednesday and he filed a complaint with the Federal Aviation Administration earlier this year. He previously <a href=«https://Salehpour» is scheduled to speak a senate panel wednesday about boeing after having filed complaint with the faa earlier this year. target="_blank" class=" js-entry-link cet-internal-link" data-vars-subunit-name=«article_body» data-vars-subunit-type=«component» data-vars-position-in-subunit=«2»>said

that tiny gaps where sections of the Dreamliners’ fuselage are joined did not always meet Boeing’s requirements, potentially compromising the safety of the aircraft.

“I literally saw people jumping on the pieces of the airplane to get them to align,” he told reporters earlier this month, HuffPost reported. “That’s not how you build a plane.”

In recent months, Boeing has made headlines after a January in-flight blowout on a 737 Max 9, which led to hundreds of flights being canceled, and an instance with a 737 Max 8 in March when pedals got “stuck” during landing. In 2018 and 2019, two crashes of 737 Max jetliners killed nearly 350 people.

In an audit of Boeing, as well as of Spirit AeroSystems, the FAA uncovered “multiple instances in which the companies allegedly failed