(NewsNation) — The FAA, in coordination with Boeing, has been granting long compliance times for airlines to fix dangerous, potentially catastrophic defects on their Boeing airplanes, according to whistleblower allegations.
Instead of requiring fixes be done immediately or within months, they sometimes give airlines several years, he said.
A man who spent decades as an aerospace engineer at both Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration is sounding the alarm today because he says both organizations are too cozy, and it’s putting passengers at risk.
In April 2018, a fan blade broke off inside the engine of Southwest Flight 1380 and ripped apart the engine, sending shrapnel inside the plane and killing 43-year-old mother of two, Jennifer Riordan.
One year and seven months earlier, the same thing happened on the same model engine and same 737 model plane, ripping a hole above the left wing in flight over Mississippi.
Mike Dostert spent seven years as an aerospace engineer for Boeing and 32 years at the FAA. Today, he is blowing the whistle on both, saying failed airplane engine inlets haven’t been fixed.
“You would think that Boeing and the FAA would rapidly get that addressed; in other words, fix the engine inlet so that if we had another fan blade fail, the engine inlet would be structurally sounded, would not fail,” Dostert said. “It’s not supposed to. Their certification requirements would require that inlet to stay on the airplane and contain the fan blade.”
Dostert, who now works with the Foundation for Aviation Safety, says Boeing and the FAA are continuing to inspect the planes’ blades, but they haven’t fixed the underlying design problem and don’t plan to for four more years.
“They’re going to give the airlines until 2028 to get this fixed,” Dostert said. “So essentially, 10 years of operation of the fleet with this known unsafe condition that resulted in an accident.”
In April, he wrote to the FAA administrator, citing numerous examples.
“We remain concerned that the similar safety culture weaknesses that have been identified at Boeing are showing signs of existing within the FAA,” he wrote.
He added that “the business as usual approach applied by the FAA needs immediate correction to avoid unnecessary exposure to catastrophic failure conditions.”
“People should be asking the FAA, ‘You know who’s driving the ship here?’” Dostert said. “Is it the FAA, or is it Boeing?”
Dostert believes it’s Boeing.
“I think that the FAA safety culture has basically gotten to the point where they’re a captured agency,” he said.
The FAA did not respond to his letter. NewsNation reached out for a comment, and although they didn’t address our questions directly, they issued the following statement in part.
“The FAA considers every comment we receive on a proposed airworthiness directive, including the one from the Foundation for Flight Safety, and we will review all input as part of the process,” an FAA spokesperson said in an email.
Boeing didn’t respond to NewsNation’s questions or request for comment.