Poppy Bilderbeck
A former Spirit AeroSystems worker has come forward claiming he was pressurised to ignore serious defects on planes supplied to Boeing.
After the door plug of a Boeing 737 Max 9 of an Alaskan Airlines flight blew out mid-air at 16,000 feet in January, Boeing and its largest plane supplier - Spirit AeroSystems - came under scrutiny and several whistleblowers came forward.
While thankfully no one was injured in the incident, former workers from Spirit AeroSystems - not affiliated with Spirit Airlines - came forward in a shareholder lawsuit against the company claiming it had intentionally overlooked issues with plane parts it supplied to Boeing.
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Lawyers involved in the suit say they are working with at least 10 former and current employees of both Spirit AeroSystems and Boeing, as per CBS News.
And former quality inspector for Spirit AeroSystems in Kansas Santiago Paredes is one of the former employees involved in the lawsuit who has since spoken out too.
Paredes told the BBC Spirit AeroSystems 'weren't focused on the consequences of shipping bad fuselages'.
Instead, he claims: "They were just focused on meeting the quotas, meeting the schedule, meeting the budget.
"If the numbers looked good, the state of the fuselages didn't really matter. That's how I think the culture was driven in Spirit."
And this meant when Paredes allegedly pointed out a whole host of defects on parts about to be shipped off to Boeing, he was put under pressure to keep quiet.
Paredes said he would frequently find 'anywhere from 50 to 100, 200' on fuselages being prepared at Spirit for Boeing, the BBC reports.
He said: "I was finding a lot of missing fasteners, a lot of bent parts, sometimes even missing parts."
The former quality control employee claims he subsequently tried to slow down the production of the parts in a bid to prevent the 'bad fuselages' being shipped out, becoming known as 'showstopper'.
However, he claims he was then told by his manager to lessen the frequency of his reports, before ultimately allegedly ending up demoted and moved to another part of the factory.
Paredes reflected he felt 'threatened' and 'felt [he] was being retaliated against for raising concerns'.
He resolved: "Boeing knowingly knew that Spirit was sending fuselages with many defects, many of them bad, they knew that, they were aware of it.
"And Spirit was wrong for sending defective fuselages but then again Boeing was also wrong for accepting them."
A spokesperson for Spirit told the BBC the company 'strongly disagree[s]' with the allegations made by Paredes, adding: "We are vigorously defending against his claims."
A spokesperson for Boeing told UNILAD: "We have been working closely with Spirit AeroSystems and its leadership to strengthen the quality of the commercial airplanes that we build together. We confirm that our collaboration has resulted in preliminary discussions about making Spirit AeroSystems a part of Boeing again.
"We believe that the reintegration of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems' manufacturing operations would further strengthen aviation safety, improve quality and serve the interests of our customers, employees, and shareholders.
"Although there can be no assurance that we will be able to reach an agreement, we are committed to finding ways to continue to improve the safety and quality of the airplanes on which millions of people depend each and every day."
UNILAD has contacted Spirit AeroSystems for comment.