The tragic Ahmedabad plane crash on June 12 has once again put Boeing’s Dreamliner under the safety spotlight. Former Boeing senior manager-turned-whistleblower and current executive director of the Foundation for Aviation Safety, Ed Pierson, has sounded the alarm on aircraft quality and flagged serious defects in manufacturing and production.
Speaking to Firstpost, Pierson said that while Boeing publicly claims safety and quality come first, that is not what plays out on the factory floor. “ Schedule was king,” he said, adding that intense pressure and fatigue among workers led to repeated mistakes.
Pierson also rejected the pilot-error narrative, calling the 787 Dreamliner an "electrical monster."
The executive director of the Foundation for Aviation Safety raised grave concerns about the direction of the investigation. Describing the Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau’s (AAIB) preliminary report as horrible, Pierson said it omitted crucial information, including sensor data, stabiliser details and the full cockpit voice recording (CVR). He also lauded the Supreme Court’s intervention in the matter.
Edited excerpts:
Firstpost: You spent nearly a decade at Boeing, including senior roles inside the 737 and 787 programmes. What did those years tell...
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