Parts supplied to Boeing had ‘serious defects’ – whistleblower
A former quality inspector at the principal supplier of Boeing, Santiago Paredes, disclosed that fuselages frequently departed the factory with significant flaws.
Paredes, employed at Spirit AeroSystems in Kansas, recounted discovering as many as 200 defects on components earmarked for delivery to Boeing.
He asserted that his efforts to address these issues, earning him the moniker “showstopper,” were met with resistance, hampering production.
Spirit AeroSystems refuted these claims, emphasizing their disagreement and commitment to defending against the allegations. Paredes made these assertions in an exclusive interview with the BBC and CBS, recounting his tenure at Spirit from 2010 to 2022.
He detailed encountering numerous defects, ranging from missing fasteners to bent or absent parts, on fuselages bound for Boeing.
Paredes alleged encountering pressure to loosen his scrutiny, with a focus on meeting production targets rather than ensuring product quality.
Boeing declined to comment on the matter. Both Spirit AeroSystems and Boeing faced scrutiny following an incident where an unused door detached from a new 737 Max aircraft, revealing underlying issues with production practices.
Paredes’ testimonies are integral to ongoing legal proceedings initiated by dissatisfied shareholders against Spirit AeroSystems.
However, in legal documents he is referred to simply as “Former Employee 1”. This is the first time Mr Paredes, a former Air Force technician, has spoken publicly.
Before his departure from the firm, Mr Paredes led a team of inspectors based at the end of the 737 Max production line.
A second former quality auditor, Josh Dean, whose claims were also to form part of the lawsuit, passed away last week after contracting a serious bacterial infection.
The lawsuit accuses the company of deliberately attempting to cover up serious and widespread quality failings, and exposing shareholders to financial losses when those failings became exposed. Spirit said it “strongly disagrees” with the assertions in the legal action.
Spirit was once part of Boeing and remains the planemaker’s primary supplier. It builds the fuselage for every 737 Max at its factory in Wichita, Kansas, before shipping them to Boeing’s own facility in Renton, near Seattle, Washington. It also makes large parts of the 787 Dreamliner.
It is now in a difficult position. It is haemorrhaging cash, and lost $617m (£494m) in the first three months of the year.
Boeing has agreed to provide financial support, and is in talks to buy back its former subsidiary.
Sources within the aerospace giant insist that efforts are under way to address quality concerns at Spirit, and these have succeeded in reducing the number of faults in parts leaving the Wichita factory by around 80%.
Mr Paredes said both companies were aware of the scale of the problem with defects, and that it was discussed at weekly meetings between quality inspectors from both firms.
Matters came to a head for Mr Paredes personally, he claimed, when he was ordered by his manager to change the way in which defects were reported, in order to reduce their overall number.
After he protested, he said, he was demoted and removed to another part of the factory.
“I felt I was being threatened, and I felt I was being retaliated against for raising concerns,” he said.
Mr Paredes subsequently filed an “ethics complaint” with the company’s human resources department, and wrote to Spirit’s then chief executive, Tom Gentile.
In that email, he said “I have lost faith on the quality organisation here at Spirit and this is my last cry for help”.
Mr Paredes was subsequently reinstated in his leadership role and given back-pay after his complaint was partially upheld. He left the company soon afterwards.
He now maintains he would be reluctant to fly on a 737 Max, in case it still carried flaws that originated in the Wichita factory.
“I’d never met a lot of people who were scared of flying until I worked at Spirit,” he said.
And then, being at Spirit, I met a lot of people who were afraid of flying – because they saw how they were building the fuselages.”
