A former senior manager at Boeing said he repeatedly warned company executives about production issues at the factory where the 737 Max jets were being built, but his recommendations to shut down production were rebuffed.
Edward Pierson, who was a senior manager at Boeing’s Renton factory, said a push to increase production of the 737 Max from 47 a month to 52, created a “factory in chaos.”
Employees were working seven days. Overtime had more than doubled and in some cases, Pierson said, employees were doing jobs for which they had no training.
“The factory did not have enough skilled employees, specifically mechanics, electricians and technicians to keep up with the backlog of work,” Pierson said in remarks prepared for a hearing Wednesday before the House Transportation Committee. “I witnessed numerous instances where manufacturing employees failed to communicate effectively between shifts, often leaving crews to wonder what work was properly completed.”
Pierson is one of several witnesses expected to testify before the House committee investigating two crashes on Boeing 737 Max jets that killed 346 people.
The Max crashes, less than five months apart, have led to intense scrutiny of Boeing, its relationship with the Federal Aviation Administration and the process by which the aircraft was certified.
FAA Administrator Steve Dickson, who will ultimately decide when the Max, which has been grounded since March, will fly again, also is scheduled to appear, as is former FAA employee Michael Collins.
The concerns raised by Pierson involve the production of the Max and not the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, the automated flight control system implicated in both crashes. Boeing has been working for on a software fix for the system. In both crashes, faulty data from a single sensor caused MCAS to mistakenly trigger, repeatedly forcing the planes’ noses down as pilots struggled to regain control.
Boeing’s decision to have MCAS rely on just one sensor, and not both of the available ones, has been a key question in the crash investigations.
Pierson, who retired from Boeing last year, said he has been interviewed by the Justice Department and by the Transportation Department’s inspector general, which are conducting their own investigations. Pierson agrees that MCAS must be fixed, but said he is concerned the focus on MCAS might prevent investigators from thoroughly examining other factors that could have played a role in the crashes.
“I remain gravely concerned that the dysfunctional production conditions may have contributed to the tragic 737 Max crashes and that the flying public will remain at risk unless this unstable production environment is rigorously investigated and closely monitored by regulators on an ongoing basis,” he said.
Pierson’s concerns were first reported by NBC News.
A Boeing spokesman said company officials were aware of Pierson’s concerns about production, discussed them in detail and took “appropriate steps to assess them.”
“Mr. Pierson did the right thing by elevating his concerns, and the fact that he was able to personally brief the head of the program and the company’s General Counsel demonstrates Boeing’s commitment to safety and to hearing employee concerns,” Gordon Johndroe said in an email.
The Chicago-based company said it did not think allegations raised by Pierson had any bearing on the two crashes.
“The suggestion by Mr. Pierson of a link between his concerns and the recent MAX accidents is completely unfounded,” Johndroe said. “Mr. Pierson raises issues about the production of the 737 MAX, yet none of the authorities investigating these accidents have found that production conditions in the 737 factory contributed in any way to these accidents. And the suggestion of such a linkage is inconsistent with the facts that have been reported about these accidents.”
