On Wednesday, Whistleblower Partners client Ed Pierson testified before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations regarding the breakdown of safety culture at Boeing. Mr. Pierson is a former Senior Manager in Boeing’s Renton, Washington factory, where it manufactures its 737 aircraft. He is now the Executive Director of The Foundation for Aviation Safety.
At the hearing, Examining Boeing’s Broken Safety Culture: Firsthand Accounts, Mr. Pierson testified alongside several other whistleblowers who shared their perspectives on Boeing’s drift towards a profit-over-safety mentality. In his written testimony, Mr. Pierson emphasized the serious decline in the U.S. approach to aircraft safety:
“Government officials brag about the U.S. aviation system being the gold standard. There is a reason aviation has been historically safe, and that’s because people worked extremely hard for decades making substantial changes. . . . [T]he gold standard is now fool’s gold. The only thing that is more dangerous than a dangerous environment, is the illusion of a safe environment.”
To read Mr. Pierson’s written testimony, click here. To watch the hearing in full, click here.
The attorneys at Whistleblower Partners have represented Mr. Pierson since he first went public with concerns about the unsafe production environment in the 737 factory. Before doing so, Mr. Pierson repeatedly warned Boeing leadership that the factory had reach an unstable condition because of the production output demanded by its executives. In December 2019, he testified before the House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee regarding Boeing’s production failures and the lack of regulatory oversight of Boeing’s factories.
