Boeing's safety culture gets a closer look on Capitol Hill

The investigation into Boeing’s safety culture and what led up to the 737 Max blowout over Portland in January has made its way to Capitol Hill.

Last week, senators heard testimony from whistleblowers and experts about ongoing problems with safety and oversight at Boeing.

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Ed Pierson, a former senior manager at Boeing, told a panel he believes the manufacturing conditions that led to two 737 Max disasters in 2018 and 2019 continue today.

"The world is shocked to learn about Boeing's current production quality issues," Pierson said. "I'm not surprised, because nothing changed after the two crashes."

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Meanwhile, at the Senate Homeland Security Subcommittee on Investigations, whistleblower and Boeing engineer Sam Salehpour testified that Boeing took "manufacturing shortcuts" and prioritized getting airplanes out of the factory instead of addressing production issues.

"Effectively, they are putting out defective airplanes," Salehpour said.

At at separate hearing heled by the Senate Commerce Committee, representatives from MIT and NASA shared insight on the safety culture at Boeing.

RELATED: Expert says Boeing's decision to move HQ from Seattle contributed to safety crisis

Javier de Luis, an aerospace engineer and lecturer at MIT, told the committee that employees don't feel safe enough to speak up when there are issues.

"There was a very real fear of retribution and payback if you held your ground, and obviously, those are things that are just not compatible with any sort of safety culture," de Luis said.

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Boeing did not send witnesses or representatives to either hearing, but the company is in talks to appear before the Homeland Security Subcommittee, and has offered to provide documents, testimony, and technical briefings.

Richard Abulafia, the managing director of AeroDyanmic Advisory, believes that Boeing is "rudderless" now that CEO David Calhoun has shared that he will be stepping down by the end of the year.

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"None of that is good for anything more than obfuscation and damage control," Abulafia said.

While the hearings didn’t offer any immediate solutions for lawmakers when it comes to addressing Boeing’s safety record, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA) pledged to introduce a bill responding to Boeing’s issues and FAA oversight by the end of the year.

Aboulafia said it's unlikely the hearings will yield any long-term or significant changes to the relationship between Boeing and government agencies like the FAA. But they do serve as just another reminder of the need to have a broader conversation about the role of regulators.

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Aboulafia was not alone in his skepticism that the testimony federal officials are hearing will, ultimately, make much of an impact.

"I'm a real cynic about congressional hearings," said Scott Hamilton, an aviation consultant with Leeham Company. "All too often, they're doing these hearings for their 15 minutes on-camera rather than trying to actually solve the problem."

Listen to the full interview with Scott Hamilton and Richard Aboulafia play clicking the play button at the top of the page.