Proactive Investors - Boeing Co (NYSE:BA, ETR:BCO) aircraft have now been involved in another two incidents in the past day, bringing the total to three accidents this week, as a whistleblower from the airplane manufacturer’s largest supplier Spirit AeroSystems has spoken out against the company.
On Thursday, a Boeing 737-300 plane carrying 85 people skidded off a runway and caught fire in Senegal’s capital Dakar, injuring 10 people. The cause of the incident is not yet known.
Boeing deferred a request for comment to the airline involved, TransAir.
Also on Thursday, 190 people were evaluated from a Boeing plane in Turkey after one of its tires burst during a landing.
And on Wednesday, a Boeing 767 cargo plane operated by FedEx (NYSE:FDX) was forced to make an emergency landing at Istanbul Airport in Turkey after its front landing gear failed.
Boeing has faced intense scrutiny since a door plug blew out of a Boeing 737 Max plane during an Air Alaska flight in January and as several whistleblowers have spoken out against the company, claiming the airplane manufacturer takes shortcuts during production which could compromise the safety of its planes.
This week another whistleblower spoke out against Boeing, a former general quality manager at Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems, not to be confused with US low-cost carrier Spirit Airlines.
Santiago Parede worked at the Spirit AeroSystems factory in Wichita, Kansas, carrying out final inspections on 737 fuselages before they were shipped to Boeing.
He told media organizations that he was finding hundreds of defects every day.
"It was very rare for us to look at a job and not find any defects,” Parede told CBS News.
He told the outlet that he often found problems inspecting the area of the same aircraft door panel that blew out during the Air Alaska accident in January.
"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 told CBS News. "If the culture was good, those issues would be addressed, but the culture is not good."
He added that, working at Spirit AeroSystems he almost developed a fear of flying. "Knowing what I know about the 737, it makes me very uncomfortable when I fly on one of them,” he said.
Spirit AeroSystems has denied the allegations. "We are vigorously defending against his claims," a company spokesperson said. Boeing has declined to comment.
Shares of Boeing traded modestly higher at $181 on Thursday as did Spirit AeroSystems, up 0.2% at $31.