A Boeing whistleblower has claimed that passengers on its 787 Dreamliner could be left without oxygen if the cabin were to suffer a sudden decompression.
According to BBC news report, John Barnett, a former quality control engineer, tests suggest up to a quarter of the oxygen systems could be faulty and might not work when needed.
He also claimed faulty parts were deliberately fitted to planes on the production line at one Boeing factory.
Boeing denies his accusations and says all its aircraft are built to the highest levels of safety and quality.
The firm has come under intense scrutiny in the wake of two catastrophic accidents involving another one of its planes, the 737 Max – the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March and Lion Air disaster in Indonesia last year.
The Ethiopian airline crash claimed 157 live 33 of them being Kenyans.
Barnet worked for Boeing for 32 years, until his retirement on health grounds in March 2017.
From 2010 he was employed as a quality manager at Boeing’s factory in North Charleston, South Carolina.
This plant is one of two that are involved in building the 787 Dreamliner, a state-of-the-art modern airliner used widely on long-haul routes around the world. Despite early teething problems following its entry into service the aircraft has proved a hit with airlines, and a useful source of profits for the company.
But according to Mr Barnett, 57, the rush to get new aircraft off the production line meant that the assembly process was rushed and safety was compromised. The company denies this and insists that “safety, quality and integrity are at the core of Boeing’s values”.
The report further indicates that in 2016, he uncovered problems with emergency oxygen systems. These are supposed to keep passengers and crew alive if the cabin pressurisation fails for any reason at altitude. Breathing masks are meant to drop down from the ceiling, which then supply oxygen from a gas cylinder.
Without such systems, the occupants of a plane would rapidly be incapacitated. At 35,000ft, (10,600m) they would be unconscious in less than a minute. At 40,000ft, it could happen within 20 seconds. Brain damage and even death could follow.
Although sudden decompression events are rare, they do happen. In April 2018, for example, a window blew out of Southwest Airlines after being hit by debris from a damaged engine. One passenger sitting beside the window suffered serious injuries and later died as a result – but others were able to draw on the emergency oxygen supplies and survived unharmed.
