Former Boeing manager says he warned company of problems prior to 737 crashes
"For the first time in my life, I’m sorry to say that I’m hesitant about putting my family on a Boeing airplane," Ed Pierson wrote to a company executive before the first tragedy.
Ed Pierson.NBC News
NBC News
Dec. 9, 2019, 5:30 PM EST
By Cynthia McFadden, Anna Schecter, Kevin Monahan and Rich Schapiro
Speaking out for the first time, a former Boeing manager says he warned the company about problems at its main factory in Washington state in the months before two of its 737 Max airplanes crashed in separate incidents that claimed the lives of nearly 350 people.
The manager, Ed Pierson, spoke to NBC News in an exclusive television interview two days before he was set to appear before Congress to detail his efforts to sound the alarm over the conditions at the Boeing plant in Renton, Washington, where he said a push to increase production of the 737 Max planes created a "factory in chaos."
From the summer of 2018 to the spring of 2019, Pierson implored Boeing executives and then the FAA and NTSB to look into the conditions at the Renton plant, according to emails obtained by NBC News.
“Frankly right now all my internal warning bells are going off,” Pierson said in an email to Scott Campbell, the general manager of the 737 Max program, on June 9, 2018. "And for the first time in my life, I’m sorry to say that I’m hesitant about putting my family on a Boeing airplane."
For more on this story, tune in to NBC Nightly News with Lester Holt tonight at 6:30pm ET/5:30pm CT or check your local listings.
Pierson offered a recommendation huge in scope and consequences: shut down the production line for a limited amount of time. He said he believed the workers needed a more stable environment to finish building the planes already in progress.
The advice to shut down production went unheeded. Four months later, a 737 Max built at the Renton plant plunged into the sea near Indonesia. All 189 people aboard the Lion Air flight were killed in the October 2018 crash.
“I cried a lot,” Pierson told NBC News. “I’m mad at myself because I felt like I could have done more.”Wreckage recovered from Lion Air flight JT610 that crashed into the sea lies at Tanjung Priok port in Jakarta, Indonesia, Oct. 29, 2018.Willy Kurniawan / Reuters file
Pierson kept up his efforts to draw attention to the plant in the aftermath of the Lion Air crash. He wrote emails to Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg and spoke with the company’s general counsel. Dissatisfied by the responses, he wrote to the Boeing board of directors on February 19, 2019.
“I have no interest in scaring the public of wasting anyone’s time,” Pierson wrote. “I also don’t want to wake up one morning and hear about another tragedy and have personal regrets.”
Tragedy struck again 19 days later. On March 10, 2019, a 737 Max crashed in Ethiopia, killing all 157 people aboard the Ethiopian Airlines flight.
“This was a last resort,” Pierson said, referring to his decision to speak to the media. “I really had hoped that by providing information to the right people, and following the protocols and the chain of command every step of the way, I thought people would do their job.”
“I didn’t expect to get this far,” added Pierson, a Navy veteran who worked at Boeing for eight years. “But I don’t think I have any choice.”
No conclusive evidence has emerged linking the crashes to the problems Pierson said he observed at the Boeing plant in Washington. Boeing has acknowledged that the planes' anti-stall software system contributed to both crashes.
But Pierson's efforts to sound the alarm, which have not been previously disclosed in detail, add fresh questions to the inquiry into whether Boeing was reckless in its push to roll out the doomed 737 Max planes.
The planes have been grounded amid the ongoing investigations.
In a statement, Boeing defended its handling of Pierson's attempts to draw attention to the plant, saying his concerns "received scrutiny at the highest levels of the company."
"Although Mr. Pierson did not provide specific information or detail about any particular defect or quality issue, Boeing took his concerns about 737 production disruption seriously," Boeing said.
But Boeing stressed that it has no reason to believe issues at the factory played any role in the crashes.
"Importantly, the suggestion by Mr. Pierson of a link between his concerns and the recent MAX accidents is completely unfounded," it 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."Family members of victims of the Ethiopian Airlines crash sit with photos of their loved ones during testimony from Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg in Washington on Oct. 29, 2019.Win McNamee / Getty Images file
A former Navy squad commander, Pierson joined the team producing the 737 Max planes in April 2015. By then, Boeing was already under the gun.
The aircraft maker’s chief competitor, Airbus, had gotten a head start on its new class of planes designed to use less fuel and cost less to operate.
Pierson said he first noticed signs of trouble in the plant in late 2017. Boeing was pushing to increase the production of 737 airplanes at Renton from 47 to 52.
More planes mean more parts, and some of Boeing’s suppliers began struggling to meet the demand, Pierson said.
The delay in parts caused a slowdown in production that had to be made up. But the Renton plant didn’t have the manpower, Pierson said.
As a result, overtime hours piled up. Pierson said workers were putting in consecutive 50- to 60-hour work weeks without taking days off.
“I know people that worked more than five weeks in a row,” Pierson said, adding that he heard reports of some employees going eight weeks without a day off.
The supply chain delays, coupled with the tremendous time pressures, led to increasing amounts of what’s known as out-of-sequence work, Pierson said. Airplanes are marvels of design and engineering. Every part serves a specific purpose and every plane is supposed to be assembled according to a specific plan.
But at the Boeing plant in Renton, Pierson said, some of the steps were being performed at places and times different than the initial plans. He grew increasingly concerned that a corner might be cut or a crucial step overlooked.
"For the airplane, you want to build it a certain way," said Pierson. "I don't know of any work that's more detailed."
He likened out-of-sequence work to building a house and deciding after the floors were put down to rip them up to finish electrical and plumbing work.
Pierson said the problems were compounded by other management decisions that he said prioritized speed over safety.
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Egregio Oscar,
grazie per i sempre interessanti articoli.
Nei miei 25 anni trascorsi in Nigeria tra inizi '70 e fine '90 i Boeing erano la scelta preferita della Nigerian airways.
Dopo che erano stati usati per decenni dalle maggiori linee aree, venivano messi sul mercato del terzo mondo, esauriti i quali si presentava ultima la Nigeria che con quattro soldi li acquistava, sedili rotti, aria condizionata malfunzionante, maschere ossigeno inesistenti, carrelli che a volte non si aprivano del tutto con atterraggi da brivido.
I Boeing che si schiantavano spesso in remoti aereoporti del paese, non facevano notizia ed in Europa non se ne parlava.
La Nigeria e' enorme e purtroppo eravamo costretti a volare da un cantiere all'altro. Segno della croce e via.
Ho volato in Ethiopia ed Eritrea e mi sembrava un deja' vu della Nigerian airways.
Il problema non e' degli aerei, ma della qualifica e addestramento, con periodici aggiornamenti, dei piloti, della regolare manutenzione che in certi paesi e con certe linee aeree manca assolutamente.
Nel caso dei Max c'e' tuttora una inchiesta in corso che non ha per ora trovato nulla di significante e non ci sono state dichiarazioni tecniche o di piloti che dicessero il contrario.
Ma dalle migliaia di dipendenti, salta fuori un manager che non vuol far volare la moglie.......
Cari saluti
Giancarlo Belluso
