A Boeing quality engineer testified Wednesday on Capitol Hill that he has “serious concerns” about the safety of the company’s 787 Dreamliner and 777 airplanes and that his bosses have ignored his warnings.

Meanwhile, aviation safety advocates accused Boeing of cover-ups following the January incident in which a door plug broke off a Boeing 737 Max 9 plane operated by Alaska Airlines and deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019, also involving 737 Max planes.

The hearing by the Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee on Investigations focused on what it called “Boeing’s broken safety culture.”

Sam Salehpour, the Boeing engineer who has become a whistleblower, said the company has taken manufacturing shortcuts that have compromised the safety of its planes. He said it used excessive force to push the major joints of 787s together to give the illusion that gaps between the parts do not exist. He said he’s concerned that, over time, the plane could break apart in mid-flight. 

“Effectively, they are putting out defective airplanes,” he charged. 

In an interview with NBC News that aired Tuesday, Salehpour said he believes all 787 Dreamliners should be grounded.

Salehpour, who has filed complaints with the Federal Aviation Administration, said he produced reports for Boeing management that went ignored and that his follow-up inspections found the issues were not addressed 98.7% of the time.

He said the company retaliated against him by transferring him to the 777 program, where he found problems there as well, including “severe misalignment when the planes were assembled.”

“I literally saw people jumping on the pieces of the airplane to get them to align,” he said. “I call it the Tarzan effect.”

Salehpour said he’s been “sidelined” at Boeing, “told to shut up” and “received physical threats.”

“My boss said, ‘I would have killed someone who said what you said in the meeting,’” he said.

Ed Pierson, executive director of The Foundation for Aviation Safety, told lawmakers that the manufacturing conditions that led to the 737 Max crashes — one off the coast of Indonesia, the other in Ethiopia — continue today. Three hundred forty-six people died in those crashes. 

“The world is shocked to learn about Boeing’s current production quality issues,” said Pierson, a former Boeing manager. “I’m not surprised because nothing changed after the two crashes.

“Unless action is taken and leaders are held accountable, every person stepping aboard a Boeing airplane is at risk.”

Pierson accused Boeing of lying to the National Transportation Safety Board when it said it has no records documenting the removal of the door on the Alaska Airlines plane. 

“I’m not going to sugarcoat this: This is a criminal cover-up,” he said. “Records do, in fact, exist. I know this because I’ve personally passed them to the FBI.”

Joe Jacobsen, an aerospace engineer and technical adviser for The Foundation for Aviation Safety, accused Boeing of moving forward with the 737 Max despite it having what he called a “serious design flaw.” Jacobsen, a former FAA engineer, said Boeing hid the design of its Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, from the FAA because it feared the regulator would mandate additional certification and training. 

MCAS, a new automated software at the time, automatically pushed a plane’s nose down, contributing to both crashes.

“Had we known, at least a half dozen experienced FAA engineers in the Seattle office would have immediately rejected the original MCAS design,” Jacobsen said. “Boeing’s concealment led to two crashes and 346 deaths.”

Jacobsen also accused Boeing — with the FAA’s support — of narrowing the scope of recertifying the 737 Maxes, which had been grounded worldwide after the crashes, to the MCAS while ignoring “other critical items.”

“I’ve spent almost 40 years studying and trying to eliminate aviation accidents,” he said. “Ignoring problems, taking shortcuts and deceiving the public just leads to more crashes.” 

No representatives from Boeing were present at the hearing. Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., the subcommitte’s chairman, said he expects Boeing CEO David Calhoun to appear for questioning at a future hearing.

In statements to Spectrum News, Boeing said, “Extensive and rigorous testing of the (787 Dreamliner) fuselage and heavy maintenance checks of nearly 700 in-service airplanes to date have found zero evidence of airframe fatigue.” It added that it is “fully confident” in the safety of 787 Dreamliner and 777 airplanes.

Boeing added that retaliation against whistleblowers is “strictly prohibited.”

Jacobsen told lawmakers he thinks more inspectors are needed on site at Boeing but added that “the attitude needs to change” at the company. 

“The attitude right now is Boeing dictates to the FAA, tells the FAA what they will do, what they will accept. And that needs to change,” he said.

Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, the top Republican on the subcommittee, called Wednesday’s testimony “troubling.”

“We have to be concerned about what’s happening,” he said. “And we’ve got to get the bottom of this.”

Blumenthal said the panel’s focus is to restore Boeing’s reputation of being a company that “once was preeminent in engineering and safety.”

“Our goal is not to drive Boeing to fail,” he said. “In fact, just the opposite: We want and need Boeing to succeed.”

In February, an FAA expert panel issued a scathing report about Boeing’s safety culture. It found that, despite improvements made after the Max crashes, Boeing’s safety culture remains flawed and employees who raise concerns could be subject to pressure and retaliation.

The Senate Commerce Committee heard from four members of that panel in a separate hearing Wednesday. 

One witness, MIT aeronautics lecturer Javier de Luis, lost his sister when a Boeing 737 Max 8 crashed in Ethiopia in 2019. De Luis commented on the disconnect between Boeing management’s words about safety and what workers observe on the factory floor.

“They hear, ‘Safety is our No. 1 priority,’” he said. “What they see is that’s only true as long as your production milestones are met, and at that point it’s ‘Push it out the door as fast as you can.’”

Boeing said Wednesday it takes the FAA review “to heart and will act on their findings and feedback.”

“Since 2020, Boeing has taken important steps to foster a safety culture that empowers and encourages all employees to raise their voice,” the company said. “We know we have more work to do and we are taking action across our company.  

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Editor's Note: This article was updated with statements from Boeing.