Boeing whistleblower says he was told to 'falsify information' when logging defects
Santiago Paredes, who spent 12 years conducting inspections on 737 fuselages for one of Boeing's suppliers, says on 'Fox & Friends First' that it was a 'constant battle' to do his job.
Another Boeing whistleblower is sounding the alarm on the safety of the planes after a number of incidents occurred in a 2-day span.
Santiago Paredes told "Fox & Friends First" Friday that he was pressured to "falsify information" when logging defects in 737 fuselages, which is the main body of the aircraft.
He said it became a constant battle to do his job of identifying and documenting defects, as there was pressure to move planes along.
"There was a lot of pressure from upper management," Paredes explained.
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Paredes spent more than 12 years working for Spirit AeroSystems – a company completely separate from Spirit Airlines – conducting final inspections of the fuselages.
But in 2022, he was instructed to complete inspections faster and be less specific about the defaults, an act that Paredes believed was unethical.
"They asked me to document defects in a different way – basically falsify the information that was, on how the documents were logged," he explained.
A spokesperson for Spirit AeroSystems told BBC the company "strongly disagrees" with Paredes' claims and would "vigorously defend" itself against the allegations.
A graphic that shows a series of Boeing aircraft incidents. ((Fox News Live))
Boeing came under immense criticism in January when a door plug blew out of a 737 MAX 9 jet at 16,000 feet of elevation. But this week, three incidents involving Boeing aircraft in the span of two days opened the door for a new round of scrutiny.
Ten people, including a pilot, were injured at Senegal’s main airport when a 737-300 plane caught fire and skidded off the runway.
A Boeing 767 was forced to land in Turkey on Wednesday without its front landing gear, which failed to open. The plane managed to stay on the runway during landing and avoided casualties.
A Boeing 737-800 carrying 190 passengers experienced a tire bursting when landing in Turkey on Thursday. All passengers were safely evacuated and no injuries were reported.
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Paredes said he wasn’t surprised by the January door plug blowout and had issued a warning about the possibility of a major incident months prior.
"I was a former employee, one on the investors’ lawsuit that was filed on December 19 and updated later on in March," he explained.
"But on December 19, I had a statement that was recorded even before that, months before the Alaskan Airlines, where I said that it was just a matter of time before something significant could happen."
When asked whether he would fly on a Boeing plane now, Paredes said: "It makes me very nervous."
The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) opened an investigation Thursday into Boeing for statements the company made regarding safety practices. Reuters reported that the SEC investigation will look into whether Boeing or its executives made statements misleading investors.
Earlier this week, the FAA opened a new investigation into Boeing after the company voluntarily informed the organization that it may not have completed required inspections to confirm adequate bonding and grounding where the wings join the fuselage on certain 787 Dreamliner airplanes.
"As we’ve shared, Boeing has taken significant action to improve the quality of Spirit AeroSystems fuselages," Boeing said in a statement to Fox News Digital. "On March 1, we moved inspection and rework teams to their factory in Wichita and have since only allowed fully-inspected fuselages to be shipped to Boeing. This action has reduced non-conformances by 80 percent."
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FOX Business' Greg Wehner contributed to this report.
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