Boeing refutes whistleblower claims on 787 assembly flaws

Boeing (BA) is refuting claims made by a whistleblower alleging manufacturing faults in the company's assembly of its 787 Dreamliner jets. Yahoo Finance Senior Reporter Pras Subramanian breaks down the complaints reported by the New York Times ahead of the Boeing whistleblower's testimony before the US Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday, April 17.

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This post was written by Luke Carberry Mogan.

Video transcript

SEANA SMITH: Can you look at Boeing? Boeing coming to its own defense once again. The planemaker saying that it has found no signs of fatigue on its 787 Jets despite the claims of a whistleblower. Joining us now with more on this is Pras Subramanian. And Pras, this comes ahead of testimony that's expected to take place tomorrow.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Yeah, in front of the Senate, Boeing kind of leaning in on the PR front here. Having a briefing with reporters a couple of hours for two hours yesterday talking about how there's no assembly problems with the assembly of the 787 and 777, that the parts fit together, there's no kind of fatigue there like you mentioned. This whistleblower that the New York Times had worked with had said that people were jumping on parts to get them to fit into like different shims to fit the fuselage is really some damning testimony or damning sort of allegations that the whistleblower gave the New York Times.

And tomorrow, we'll hear from him at the Senate panel. It's probably not going to go good for Boeing because I think there's a lot of bipartisan sort of concern over America's Premier playmaker. What is going on there? Have they fixed the culture?

We're hearing about how the helpline they have for safety tips has exploded at the Boeing plant. And that's a good thing. But the question is, how far have they come to change what's happening there? And we'll see more about that tomorrow.

MADISON MILLS: Pras, I'm just curious. When you think about the performance of the company under Dave Calhoun's leadership, and whether or not he is going to be able to stick around, at least metaphorically, moving forward throughout the rest of the year, what do we know about what that process is looking like for a successor and the degree to which he is going to be still overseeing things, even if he's taken a bit of a step back?

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: Yeah, I think he's still basically the CEO until the end of the year. As of right now, he's running the show. And we're going to hear more about that next week probably during the earnings report, how that succession plan is going.

I have to imagine he hasn't really taken a step back just quite yet because they don't really have an heir apparent in place or an actual nominee in place. So I think he's still going to be there for a while. I was just thinking the other day about how much of this really is Dave Calhoun's fault.

I mean, a lot of this stuff happened a long time ago. He was sort of there. And maybe he didn't do enough or was more up front about what's happening. In particular, what's happening with the Spirit AeroSystems in the late fall. Maybe there were some things there that needed to be addressed.

But he just sort of was in a bad place at this time. And that, I mean, he came in after the 737 Max issues. And just sort of just didn't work out for him.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, that certainly is important to point out. Although I guess you could make the argument that there has been mounting pressure just in terms of more internal changes that need to take place. And ultimately, if you are at the helm a lot of times, whether or not it's your fault, you're held responsible for some of those issues.

PRAS SUBRAMANIAN: I think one big thing is probably the airline partners were not happy with his performance. I think that was a big part of it.

SEANA SMITH: Yeah, I think you're exactly spot on with that. All right, Pras, thanks so much.