A whistleblower at Boeing's supplier said he 'almost grew a fear of flying' from working 12 years there

Boeing 737 MAX airplanes are pictured outside a Boeing factory on March 25, 2024 in Renton, Washington. Stephen Brashear/Getty Images

• An ex-worker at Spirit AeroSystems, which makes the 737 fuselage, said he almost has a fear of flying from his time there.
• Santiago Paredes, a former quality manager of 12 years at Spirit, accused the firm of rushing safety inspections.
• He said he would find “over a hundred defects” per day when carrying out final inspections.

A former employee of Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems said he nearly developed a fear of flying because of what he saw during his 12-year stint inspecting aircraft fuselages there.

Santiago Paredes, who was a quality manager at Spirit’s Wichita facility, told CBS News in a Wednesday report that he would observe “over a hundred defects every day” when conducting final inspections of 737 fuselages.

“Working at Spirit, I almost grew a fear of flying,” said Paredes. “There’s about two or three units that is in the back of your mind, that you know you would never want to fly on.”

“You think there are planes out there that you wouldn’t want to fly on?” CBS senior transport correspondent Kris Van Cleave asked Paredes.

“Oh yeah,” Paredes said. “Knowing what I know about the 737, it makes me very uncomfortable when I fly in one of them.”

Boeing outsources the manufacturing of the 737 fuselage to Spirit and, when assembling the plane at its own facilities, employs a team that finds and fixes defects.

Paredes, who left Spirit in 2022, called the operation a “recipe for disaster.” He accused the company of fostering a work culture that pressured inspectors to clear fuselages faster so they could hit deadlines.

The former quality manager said he was even nicknamed the “Showstopper” by his bosses because he would delay deliveries by pointing out issues.

He also told CBS that he often found defects near door panels like the one that blew out midair on an Alaska Airlines 737 flight in January, which prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to temporarily ground more than 170 of the planes.

In February, the National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary investigation into the January incident said bolts were missing from the 737 Max 9’s door plug.

“Why’d that happen? Because Spirit let go of a defect that they overlooked because of the pressure that they put on the inspectors,” Paredes said.

Paredes told CBS that he once sent an email pushing back against his managers’ requests to speed up inspections and then was removed from his leadership position. He complained to human resources and was later reinstated, but resigned, he told the outlet.

He is now a whistleblower in a lawsuit against Spirit brought by shareholders. In court documents, he was identified as “Former Employee 1” until coming forth to speak publicly about his experience, the BBC reported.

Another whistleblower at Spirit, John Dean, was also meant to give testimony in the lawsuit but died from a sudden illness in early May.

Spirit has said that the allegations in the lawsuit are false.

Paredes’ accusations are the latest blow to the embattled Spirit and Boeing, which have both faced intensifying scrutiny after the January door plug incident. The 737 Max has become the subject of criticism from several whistleblowers, who accused the manufacturers of compromising safety standards to fill deliveries more quickly.

Boeing has since begun inspecting fuselages at Spirit’s Wichita facility, resulting in a backlog of 737 deliveries that cost Spirit $416 million in operations expenditures in Q1 2024, up from $46 million in the same period last year.

Spirit AeroSystems did not immediately respond to a request for comment outside regular business hours by Business Insider.

When contacted for comment, a spokesperson for Boeing referred BI to Spirit.

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