Hey there. It's Michael this week the daily is revisiting some of our favorite episodes of the year listening back and then hearing what happened in the time since today, though whistle blowers at Boeing it's Friday, January third boy was deeply They were they placed work. You know it My God, it was amazing when I put that boy shirt on how punches Pascal you not walk into the store around here and like you are for both matters, of whom and thank you so much and you're just means most of those very ago mile energy is also an issues. don't have any more. Nobody does our battle

the boy earn their embarrassed worker milestone is go. Did you expect to he'll the way that you feel about the company? Now, oh, absolutely, not manly out still loosely baron. I buy this. I guess I got a conscience is not now but but I guess you know I had to get it. I have to get her drive us. Why keep telling the story somebody's got to step in and get it adrift from your tonnes? Unlike about this today, Indonesia's search and rescue agency says that's a lie on air passenger flights has crashed into the sea. An ethiopian Airlines Boeing, seven three seven travelling from an added have about Nairobi, has crashed with death report after the two crash.

Of Boeing, seven, thirty, seven, blacks jets, regulators and lawmakers began asking questions about what the ways to get that jet fuel and the competitive pressure may led to miss safety risks in the planes design, and bowing Faye faulty sensors on new seven thirty, seven MAX jets can cause the plane to go into a steep die in reporting that story. My colleague, Natalie Kitchen began to look into whether that pressure exe and to be on the seven thirty seven MAX it's Tuesday April. Twenty four

Nellie, where does this story starts? In the wake of the two crashes of the seven thirty seven max jet? We, began looking into whether that frenzied pace, whether those pressures might have had an pact, not just on the engineering decisions around the design of the aircraft at the highest levels, but whether it also please out on the factory floor and affects the people who are actually building bowing planes. Basically, is there a larger cultural issue here, that's the question we were asking and we hear from attorneys who

you are representing multiple whistle blowers who work on the factory floor at Boeing, and it turns out that these whistleblowers have been trying to get attention to these, issues to their concerns for a very long time, and any time you hear, out there being several whistleblowers with the same concerns at a company like Boeing. You pay attention so one of these whistleblowers was named John, hey swampy, I don't or swampy swamp. He goes swampy is short for swamp dog. The word of God. Not working does one on pop

nanda was wont now from the swamps, Lou, then just Doug, so I start talking swampy. Can I ask why you decided to become a whistle blower while for awhile, and that leads me to many other whistle blowers? We're not talking about cars? You knock your car breaks. I looked at the regional and ultimately the plane, the actual material of my colleague and I talk to more than a dozen current and former employees and Review hundreds of pages of internal emails, company documents federal records. We speak with the effort ay and with Boeing and

We begin to piece together an entirely new narrative about the way that manufacturing is done at Boeing that we never expected to find Gentlemen, your seven seven Dreamliner. So I started the seven eighty seven Dreamliner another of Boeing's crown jewels. This is the first commercial airplane to be made with fifty percent composite materials. It was unveiled in two thousand seven and it was Boeing's most important offering in a generation and it looks good I remember, reading about the spain- is a giant windows. On usually big knows it was gonna, be the next big thing in airlines, oh yeah, or else the news of the mind.

New airplane technology. You know: They are an forever. It was now future. Absolutely that's? Why Dreamliner, because our future now fully composite carbon fiber reinforce it was a big deal. The fortunes of the Boeing company, are flying on the wings of the Dreamliner so anyway but the way not gonna, be well received on Wall Street, but pretty quickly. This Eighty seven programme begins to run into problems, so it is delaying their some felling saying. In fact it's not gonna know even for the next few weeks when it is going to reschedule now. The company, is dealing with. Two new was seven. Eighty seven incidents in the past today, yet another delay for Boeing. Seven, eighty, seven Dreamliner, the! U S plain make pushed back the schedule for the fourth time through the point were one following: begins:

to get a bit concerned about whether it's gonna meet the deadlines that it set for the programme elsewhere. A confident Boeing is going to build a second plan to make us any seven dreamliner they ve. So Boeing decides it's going to open a brand new factory and how big a deal is that, following this is a huge deal for Boeing Boeing has been making its commercial aircraft in two factories in Washington. This would be ran to a new state, a new assembly line, you're talking manufacturing hub. That needs to be stated, the art they can manufacture. One of the most advanced- aircraft in the world major investment both in real estate and in jobs

and where they are building the facility. Do I need to say it is a great day in South Carolina. They pick Charleston South Carolina. We are telling the entire world that we build things in South Carolina. We build cars, we build tyres, and now we build dreams, big MAC, daddy, seven, eighty seven dreams. The issue is the Boeing has promised to create thirty eight hundred local jobs, but Charleston. Doesn't have the thriving aerospace workforce that you would see in Washington where Boeing has nurtured generations of aircraft builder and they bring people like swampy managers from the Washington area over the Charleston to get things started a modular food rather than a board. So when they open up

He sat down on a plan, but that is a great opportunity not only get close from a family but to help build from ground. I won't be a part of it was the culture of the factory in trials in the same as the culture of the factory in Washington all absolutely not one night and day they heard a lot of people from the south. State, but really had no experience with the mare plans and building commercial aeroplanes understanding what procedures were critical of you. So you know that was a big change, our big difference. Our foes, like you, didn't, have to experience down here, so they are furiously trying to train all of these new workers, but they're really far behind and the seventy seven programme years. Behind

eventually the plane comes out, but a couple years later they run into a problem. The FDA suddenly announced they are grounding the dream liner. The ethical grounds, the fleet. After a problem with that, or is over heating that could cause a fire its grounded until it can prove to the federal government that the airline has fix the problem with the battery that continues to overheat. They come up with a fix, but what I am learning from people like swampy from the more than a dozen current and former please that we talk to is that the batteries warrant, the only problem that there was pressure on the factory floor. That was creating a litany of other issues. What was your title when he moved to transcend quality manager, mobile family quality, and I do so as a quality control manager,

of swampy job was to check the insides of planes to make sure that, as workers are building the planes, nothing is left behind. No debris is left inside. The aircraft thought out an airplane to look at an issue and that's where we're discovered, lawless, Bree, these branch, long, titanium, slivers, lay and around it just debris everywhere and while he's doing these inspections, he begins to notice that there are clusters of metal slivers that are hanging over the wires that control the plane. The roof clear. These muddle slivers will migrate into power panel, any kind of power and account electronic equipment and shorted out called far and of its at forty thousand feet at the opera. Is this normal? No, no, absolutely! No! This is the first

He brings the issue to his managers and he says we need to clean this option. They showed in aeroplanes, took pictures, sending pictures and appear. Man walked in on the conversation. You know when they was tell him up here. You need to go inspect line. Two hundred and thirty. I said that's what we just looked at these are pictures I sent you, I said I won't sign off on it. I won't accept it, so he I was removed. So you're saying you alerted your manager to the debris that you found on this plain and in response he took you off the plane and gave it to someone else to inspect. Yes, as Kirk did that ever get cleaned, it was delivered, would without being claimed and its

not just the metal slivers on these plans. Swampy and several other employees at Boeing have said that there is a ton of stuff that is being left inside of the aircraft's nuts bolts, fast sinners, rags, bubble, rap trash tools, and it's not just in the process there finding this stuff on the flight line as the planes are being prepared for delivery, and when you see inside the plane you mean inside the guts, the machinery of the plane, not the passenger parts of the planet. Right, it's inside the bowels, of the aircraft. So we heard the story of a representative for American Airlines who found a bolt a stray,

old inside of an engine, and this was on a plane that had already gone up for a test flight with Boeing pilots. We heard about a ladder inside of a tale of a plain that had also already gone up for a test light. The workers pointed to these as examples of shoddy, sometimes sloppy workmanship. We heard, for example, of a technician who found chewing gum holding together the lining of a door just a cosmetic issue, but again sloppiness with some of the objects, though there worse

safety risks. Employees said Anne. I asked swampy about all this swampy. I think you know some people might hear a lot of stuff that you saw and say look. It sounds like a lot of that is sloppy, but maybe it doesn't affect safety. What would you say to that? Probably about sixty percent I would agree at sloppy it, but just shoot from the forty percent of this is critical: stopping the metal shavings floating around the electronic equipment if you ve ever put your head against the window of an airplane. You know how much a plain vibrates, while it's fine, imagine then a bolt

a ladder or these metal shavings vibrating near wiring or near critical parts of the plain that bald headed migrated inside of the engine. It could have caused the engine to malfunction. So swampy sees this pressure for speed, resulting in all of this sloppiness, but he's even more troubled by something else. He seen as a reflection of this culture lemme tell you what we'll be right back. The daily is supported by tedium irritated, there's, no oral. Why aren t am I that's? Why tedium Eritrea

aided a learning experience? I will actually learn with you curated from their vast library of exclusive content. It customized affect your investing goals, interests and needs. So you get exactly the formation you need, and none of the information you don't get started at tedium era: trade, dot, com, slash, education, that's tv, a merry trade dot com. Hush education, I'm Wendy Door and I'm an editor on the daily. For most My adult life, I thought of the New York Times as edge. I ain't news machine that spit out news stories all day, long kind of like a vending machine and I'm embarrassed to say that it wasn't really until I came to work here at the times that I started to think about the reporters behind those news stories and what it takes to get the story in the first place. Sometimes these reporters risked their lives. Sometimes they talk to us two in the morning. Sometimes they call us from a war zone and nodded

Do they tell us what's happening on the ground wherever they are, but they also give us the context that we need to understand it. If you like hearing. These reporters every day, which I know I do, the one thing that you can do to support them, and the daily is to subscribe to the New York Times if you'd like to do that, go to and why times dot com, slash, subscribe I wouldn't find a more assertive calling manager. Remorseful swampy at a certain point, is in charge of the area of the factory that houses defective partners, and he says that hundreds of defective parts are going missing, with no record of where they ve gone Basic later did go an inner. We tried to figure out who took a morning when we had no idea whether when we just don't know- and he suspects and fears that they are ending up on

plans of highly likely that aeroplanes, absolutely those fears, are confirmed in a particularly troubling episode. So I was actually at all does that day. I'd come now like next there, the day after them attain start. Tell me about what inspectors tell me- and I this is what burn and esprit overseer. We tried to tell him you get where here is from the inspectors, who report to have that a manager has

come in to that area for defective parts taken a defective, a dented hydraulic tube out of that area, given it to another manager who installed it on an airplane, he only minor Dreamliner, unlike for your minds, barter job vote, but no, you cannot do that at a furious, browsers violation, basically told them. The same thing don't worry about. It is the hydraulic too. Is it essential to the plain earlier, because the hydraulic works operates your flaps when your flaxen, you know anything that requires hydraulic movement, which is typically are your flight control systems? Yeah! That's where you hydraulic looms, go the reason that his inspectors know that this happened is that it looks as though some one has announced-

successfully tried to rub off the red paint that is on this part, there's red paint on the part, because its defective that is meant to signal do not install this part on a plane for someone went into the pile of red painted defective stuff grab. Something out I to disguise it as non defective, non red and had it installed in the plane. Boeing said that it investigated this issue and did not substantiate swampy claims But swampy says it wasn't just anybody that did this. It was senior manager, someone above swampy has done this, and so he calls that person. He says- and he says I am here in that you did. This is a true did that happen, said Europe, but they don't. You worry about me. I gotta think her

That managers said it did and let it go. We have it handle and again. Swampy submitted a complaint about this issue to the affair. The FDA investigated and found that defective parts had gone missing. Now, you're them into the culture of Charleston. The right and the culture here is also playing, though our own does, and away get em I'll, get him out. Remember that in this factory there is a huge amount of pressure to produce these planes as fast as possible and if Don't have the part that you need to finish the job, just one job on the airplane that holds you back. That holds the whole production line back and so, if it's easier and faster to just go grab a defective part and put it on the plain that might be. What you

Do in that scenario, in fact, I had one senior manager one day tell me that the rest of you the standing around from about inspection, and he said the eldest. We don't need inspector. These planes are too smart to follow the scar oh my god, with their mentality running the show down here that scary and swampy were managers rewarded for production Yes, actually, almost measured hourly time, remainder yeah, there's. The pressure to me schedule and folks are getting. Managers are getting judged by their superiors,

based on an hour, no job, your soul, based on an hourly count of the work that they're doing of the jobs that they complete and get approved by quality and workable and its held against them. If they create differ. So there is an incentive, not report, your defect that you created because it can be held against you. What is Boeing say about this idea that there is a conflict between the safety that they proclaimed and the on the ground pressures that you're describing from employees to get these brains out the door, but

pushes back on the idea that there is a cultural problem. They reject that notion altogether. In response to our reporting, Boeing insisted that safety is its number one priority and said we prioritize safety and quality over speed, but all three can be accomplished while still producing one of the safest aeroplanes flying today in be clear. The seven hundred and eighty seven Dreamliner has never crashed. It has a pristine safety record and there's no evidence that any of the problems that we document has led to major safety incident in but the crashes of those two seven. Thirty, seven MAX jets, the question that is being

raised by law makers by regulators and by employees within Boeing is whether those three factors, safety, quality and speed, are always in balance or whether sometimes the competitive pressures that This at the highest levels of this company, are bearing down not just on the engineers as they. Design how this aircraft is going to work, but also on the factory floor on the people who are responsible for assembling and manufacturing these aircraft as the push to produce sometimes leads senior level managers to overlook or ignore or sometimes dismiss the concern

is raised by the people who are making these plants are sacred vertically accord. The act, activities going on with him boring or mater where to the people whose lives could be affected. You know I mean look at the seven hundred and thirty seven max. I mean Those those lies in those families- and you know, the quality manager. It boy you're, the last line of defence before but defect makes it out to the flying public so as a quality man and your being the last line of defence led to huge responsibility. You know everything up at my name or when I'm certifying that it meets the requirements. The regulatory requirements the save airworthy condition- and I insane a plain at Charleston yet that I put my name the same safe and airworthy.

Swampy is just one employee, but he retired a couple of years ago because of the pressure that he felt to not report violations. I think a lot of people listening to this may have flights booked on seven. Eighty seven's, and I wonder why you would tell them say outrageous. A man I gotta say Romania's understand what get into a main understand. Just go. This brand of airplane not me built right. Would you fly

seven eighty seven Dreamliner out of Charleston no MA, am you couldn't payment swampy. Thank you. You're. Welcome. I'll, be right back. With one hundred and thirty million books in the world deciding which to read- can be hard answer workable. The podcast where fabulous authors and emerging talent led the way through an immersive, sound experience of their book join housed.

The stern to explore, award winning novels secret masterpieces and even a few forgotten gems, subscribe and hear what book of all is getting rave reviews book a ball from loud tree media available, unoccupied, casts Spotify or wherever you get. Your pride casts Following Natalie investigation, the times reported that the Department of Justice, which was already looking into problems with Boeing's seven thirty, seven max jet, had broad Its investigation to include the Dreamliner. As part of that investigation, federal prosecutors, subpoenaed Boeing for documents related to pay action processes at the Dreamliner plan in north trusted. Where swampy worked. Seven thirty seven MAX has remained. Grounded by federal regulators for new.

A year as a result. In MID December Boeing said it would temporarily stop production of the jet. A few days later, Boeing fired its chief executive Dennis small number. That's it for the daily. I Michael Novara Seal, muddy.