Whistleblowers, 737 Max victims’ relatives call on Boeing to improve

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When Boeing agreed to a plea deal with the Department of Justice earlier this month, it agreed to a criminal fine of $243.6 million. It agreed to an additional $455 million investment over three years to strengthen its safety and compliance programs. And it agreed to submit to an independent monitor who would be tasked with ensuring it was complying with the terms of the agreement.
The deal was the latest chapter of the criminal fraud case related to the 2018 and 2019 737 Max crashes that together killed 346 people. But in promising to appeal the agreement, some families of the victims in those crashes say the deal simply does not do enough to get Boeing back on the right course.
“The plea deal is basically a wrist-slap for Boeing. It will not accomplish the two main objectives that I think the DOJ would want to accomplish: the first is having some sort of accountability for the actions committed, and the second is changing the behavior of the company so it doesn’t happen again,” Javier de Luis, whose sister Graziella de Luis y Ponce was killed in the Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max crash in March 2019, told USA TODAY. “The things that Boeing is signing up to do over the next three years under a monitor are basically the same things they signed up to do under the deferred prosecution agreement, which the Department of Justice said two months ago they had not met.”
De Luis is an aerospace engineer who was also a member of a Federal Aviation Administration expert review panel that investigated Boeing’s safety culture after the crashes. 
He said during the panel’s investigation, they found that for all of Boeing’s talk of wanting to improve safety and production quality, the corporate goals were not filtering down onto the factory floor.
“When we talked to the folks at Boeing, we talked to hundreds of people. When we talked to the executives and higher-level managers, we were told one story, and when we talked to the mechanics and the engineers, they’d say ‘yeah, we hear that, but that’s not what’s happening,’ ” de Luis said. “There was this disconnect, as we called it, between the message and where the work is being done.”
It’s been a tumultuous few years for Boeing’s commercial airplane division. Even as it was trying to recover its reputation from the 737 Max crashes, questions about the quality of planes coming off the production lines at its factories continued. Those questions were put in especially stark relief in January when an Alaska Airlines 737 Max, which had only been flying for a few months, lost a door plug at 16,000 feet.
The plea deal that Boeing agreed to earlier this month did not cover the Alaska Airlines incident, and the FBI notified passengers on that flight that they may be victims of a crime.
Through it all, a steady stream of whistleblowers continued to come forward, some even before the first Max crash ever occurred, saying what de Luis and the FAA panel ultimately put in their report: that the company’s managers placed a greater emphasis on production speed than quality, and that they had serious concerns not just about problems with how the 737 Max was being put together, but with the 787 and 777 as well.
Boeing insists it takes whistleblower complaints seriously and that it has investigated all of the claims that have surfaced. 
“I’m passionate about the need and the importance for employees to speak up,” Elizabeth Lund, Boeing’s senior vice president of quality, told reporters during a presentation in June. “I would love for employees to be comfortable telling us. If they are not, it is OK that they go to the FAA. We take these whistleblower concerns and issues extremely seriously.” 
The whistleblowers, however, say they’ve often faced retaliation for their reports.
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When he testified before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigation on June 18, Boeing’s outgoing CEO Dave Calhoun acknowledged that he has not spoken directly to any of the whistleblowers.
When asked for comment, Boeing pointed to Calhoun’s committee testimony.
“We are committed to making sure every employee feels empowered to speak up if there is a problem. We also have strict policies in place to prohibit retaliation against employees who come forward. It is our job to listen, regardless of how we obtain feedback, and handle it with the seriousness it deserves,” he said.
Boeing continues to say it is working to return to its engineering roots.
During a media open house at the end of June, the company showcased changes it made on its production line, and at least one employee selected by the company to lead tours for journalists said he could feel the culture shifting as management became more open to feedback.
Boeing executives also highlighted so-called safety stand downs: days at the company’s various production facilities where they paused the lines to allow workers to voice their concerns and offer suggestions for improvement.
In its efforts at transparency, Boeing inadvertently revealed nonpublic information about the Alaska Airlines door plug investigation to journalists and was sanctioned by the National Transportation Safety Board. 
Despite Boeing’s promises, de Luis said he’s skeptical that the company is really ready to change. He said he and other relatives of 737 Max crash victims plan to appeal the plea deal in hopes of Boeing eventually submitting to more restrictive and punitive terms.
“The agreement, if you read it, is an agreement that’s appropriate for white-collar bookkeeping crimes, not for a crime that led directly to the deaths of 346 people,” de Luis said. “What we propose is a monitoring regime funded by a much heftier fine that would put people in the factories – more intrusive, if you will.” 
Despite his frustrations, de Luis said that he just wants to see Boeing once again become a company known for engineering excellence, out from under the shadow of its own missteps.
“I personally would give up on the understandable desire for the accountability of my sister’s death if you can convince me that the actions taken will result in a safer 737, 787 and 777,” he said. “I have children, I have friends, I have people flying these airplanes. I would rather they not crash.”
Zach Wichter is a travel reporter for USA TODAY based in New York. You can reach him at [email protected].