As Nadia, her family, and other families of crash victims approach an important meeting with the Department of Justice in an effort to hold Boeing accountable, the Berkshire Eagle interviews Nadia. The meeting with the DOJ is April 24th.
The link to the story is here.
SHEFFIELD — The parents of a Sheffield victim of a Boeing jetliner crash are expected to advocate next week in support of a federal criminal case against the company.
Nadia Milleron and her husband, Michael Stumo, will be joining other victims’ families on Wednesday to meet with Department of Justice officials in its Fraud Section. That testimony will come a week after another whistleblower testified before federal lawmakers alleging Boeing hid manufacturing problems and retaliated against him for speaking out.
Milleron said she hopes the agency will decide to throw out a deferred prosecution agreement from 2022. That agreement has helped Boeing executives so far avoid criminal charges for two 737 Max crashes killed 346 people — including Milleron and Stumo’s 24-year-old daughter, Samya Stumo.
Milleron — whose travails trying make politicians hold Boeing accountable has sparked her current run for a the U.S. congressional seat long held by Rep. Richard Neal, D-Springfield — told The Eagle that Wednesday’s allegationsfrom former Boeing engineer Sam Salehpour add to the existing evidence that the company cut safety corners for profit. The deferred prosecution agreement, she said, gave Boeing three years to mend their ways.
“And we’re saying they didn’t,” Milleron said. “Not only did they not clean up their act, they got worse.”
Boeing’s problems have snowballed following the two 737 Max crashes five months apart. Ethiopian Airlines crashed in Ethiopia, killing 157 peopleincluding Stumo in March 2019; Lion Air crashed in the Java Sea In October 2018, killing all 189 people on board.
The crashes are blamed on the automated flight control software and sensors installed in the old 737 body design. Pilots weren’t informed about certain aspects of its functions and the description wasn’t in the flight manuals. The planes were grounded worldwide, then recertified in November 2020.
But over time, investigators and whistleblowers have lamented the lack of a “safety culture,” alleging that Boeing had rushed the planes to market. The victims’ families have sued the company.
More recently, a January blowout of a cabin panel on an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 plane exposed a more systemic problem. Soon Boeing CEO David Calhoun, who began his career at The General Electric Co. in Pittsfield, resigned. Then earlier this month, Salehpour, an engineer for Boeing for 10 years, said flaws in the Dreamliner 787 aircraft are a ticking time bomb due to “airframe fatigue.”
During testimony by Salehpour and other whistleblowers before the Senate Homeland Security Investigations Subcommittee, Salehpour said that Boeing workers who raise alarms on safety issues are “ignored, marginalized, threatened, sidelined and worse.” He also told Senators that he feared “physical violence.”
His testimony comes the month after John Barnett, another Boeing whistleblower, was found dead of what authorities said was a “self-inflicted gunshot wound.”
Boeing has issued statements since the Jan. 5 blowout saying that it is working to improve “safety and quality.” The company also says the 787 Dreamliner is safe.
“In 13 years of service, the global 787 fleet has safely transported more than 850 million passengers on more than 4.2 million flights,” the company said on its website. “A 787 can safely operate for at least 30 years before needing expanded airframe maintenance routines. Extensive and rigorous testing of the fuselage and heavy maintenance checks of nearly 700 in-service airplanes to date have found zero evidence of airframe fatigue.”
Milleron said some of the most significant information revealed from Wednesday’s hearing was that Boeing did have work records for the panel blowout on the Alaska Airlines plane that left a gaping hole during flight. Boeing had previously claimed it did not have the work records, she said.
Sen. Ron Johnson prefaced his questioning with a reminder of “the 800-pound gorilla in the room” that is economy and the “tremendous pressure society-wide to keep these planes flying.”
Heather Bellow can be reached at hbellow@berkshireeagle.com or 413-329-6871.