Thursday’s crash has focused scrutiny on Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, one of its best-selling aircraft. It has a good safety record but has suffered from production setbacks and attention from whistleblowers.
Battery fires led air safety regulators to ground the fleet for four months in 2013. More recently, Boeing had to pause 787 deliveries for almost two years because of quality-control problems.
Boeing builds the 787 in South Carolina. Last year, it rejected allegations about the aircraft’s structural integrity from a longtime in-house engineer. Boeing said the issues raised had been rigorously examined and that it had found the aircraft was safe to fly over decades.
Other whistleblowers have raised concerns about the South Carolina factory. Among them was John Barnett, a former quality manager at Boeing, who went public with concerns about poor manufacturing processes in 2019.
