- Sam Mohawk, a Boeing employee of 13 years, claimed on “60 Minutes” that some factory workers took flawed airplane parts from storage and installed them on airplanes in order to keep production moving. Boeing and other aircraft manufacturers have dealt with staggering supply-chain issues since the pandemic.
A Boeing quality investigator is doubling down on claims he made earlier this year about the airline manufacturer’s use of faulty parts, which could make aircraft less safe or lead to malfunctions. Sam Mohawk, a Boeing employee of 13 years, alleged employees have resorted to secretly installing defective parts onto aircraft because of supply shortages, leaving shoddy units unaccounted for in factory storage, and potentially on airplanes laden with passengers and cargo. Boeing, for its part, denies the allegations.
“There’s so much chaos in that factory that there’s a desperation for parts because we have problems with our parts suppliers,” Mohawk told CBS News in a “60 Minutes” interview published Sunday evening. “In order to get the plane built and out the door in time, I think, unfortunately, some of those parts were recycled back onto the airplanes in order to keep building the airplane and not stop it in production.”
Boeing factories keep compromised units in a “parts jail,” Mohawk said, where the company can track the items to keep them out of production. Because pandemic-damaged supply pipelines have prevented aircraft manufacturers from ramping up plane production, some Boeing factory workers allegedly circumvented protocol to remove items from the parts jail, unbeknownst to Mohawk’s team, and installed them on aircraft.
In addition to bolts and smaller units, workers also took important items like rudders, which control an aircraft’s steering. According to Mohawk, 42 flawed or nonconforming rudders went missing, evidence that the practice of nabbing parts behind lock and key is pervasive.
“I think it’s happening repeatedly,” Mohawk said in the interview. “We have thousands of missing parts.”
Boeing told Fortune it completed two investigations into Mohawk’s claims, which included interviewing employees and walking the factory, but did not find evidence that any defective parts ended up on Boeing aircraft. The company said Mohawk’s claims did not impact aircraft safety.
“This is an example of how Boeing listens to employees and thoroughly reviews their concerns about safety and quality,” the statement said.
Airplane ‘Russian roulette’
Boeing will have a long list of New Year’s resolutions following a 2024 defined by disaster. The airline manufacturer’s dreadful year began when a door plug ripped off a 737 Max jet belonging to Alaska Airlines mid-flight, setting in motion a series of investigations into Boeing’s safety culture and other aircraft compromises.
The airline manufacturer is still unable to return to its full production capacity, which has exacerbated its delayed deliveries of jets to airlines, having halted production of its 737 Max and other models at its major plants during a 54-day strike over workers’ wages and insurance costs. Shortly after the Alaska Airlines disaster, the FAA capped 737 Max production at 38 aircraft per month until the manufacturer could prove it made significant and lasting changes to its quality assurance protocols.
The potential installation of shoddy parts on jets could have massive consequences for Boeing and its passengers, as it means those aircraft may not last their usual 30-year lifespan. A “catastrophic event” would be imminent should the vehicles not be properly investigated.
“It’s like Russian roulette, you know?” Mohawk told CBS News. “You don’t know if it’s gonna go down or not.”
At the core of Boeing employees’ concerns, according to other whistleblowers, is the prioritization of productivity over safety. It’s a sentiment Mohawk said contributed to workers’ urgency to keep production going, even at the expense of safety.
“The idea is to keep those airplanes moving, keep that line moving at all costs,” Mohawk said.
Past allegations
Mohawk made similar allegations in June, claiming in a complaint made with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration that Boeing lost as many as 400 shoddy 737 Max parts as of last year. The company also allegedly deleted records of many of those parts from its catalog system and “intentionally hid” those poorly stored, damaged parts from the FAA before a scheduled inspection of a facility, he claimed.
Boeing said its data systems do track nonconforming parts, and none of these items were included on its planes.
The company has also appeared to have made changes to how it approaches quality assurance. FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker said last week the manufacturer has already taken steps to “reset.” Following the strike, the company took a month before resuming production to ensure employees were properly trained and to allow the supply chain to catch up with the ramp-up in production.
“In previous strikes, they’ve just come right back and started production,” he told NBC News. “This time following safety management principles they’ve been very systematic, so that is a positive development.”
