BA Boeing Co

By Andy Pasztor 

U.S. aviation regulators and congressional investigators are looking into complaints by roughly a dozen purported whistleblowers alleging safety problems with Boeing Co.'s beleaguered 737 MAX jets, according to government officials familiar with the matter.

Neither the individuals nor the complaints have been made public and, according to these officials, only some of the allegations pertain to the design of a suspect flight-control feature or operation of specific sensors that are central to fatal crashes of a pair of 737 MAX aircraft.

But the number of allegations -- and the fact that they are being pursued by an array of investigators -- suggests such confidential complaints could become a significant part of ongoing inquiries by federal prosecutors, various Transportation Department offices and committees on Capitol Hill. The allegations have come from some Federal Aviation Administration employees, as well as from current and former Boeing workers, the officials said.

In recent weeks, according to one official familiar with the details, investigators for the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee have received several confidential complaints related to the MAX fleet, which is currently grounded world-wide.

Following last month's crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX -- which nose-dived a few minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa, killing all 157 people on board -- a dedicated FAA whistleblower hotline received what are believed to be four additional safety concerns, another official said. At least one of those pertains to alleged assembly-line lapses concerning so-called angle of attack sensors, the official said.

CNN earlier reported on the whistleblower complaints received by the FAA.

The FAA is delving into the complaints but hasn't yet finished its analysis, this official said.

Crash investigators have preliminarily determined that a malfunctioning sensor touched off the sequence of events that led to both the Ethiopian crash and a similar one in Indonesia, where a Lion Air disaster claimed 189 lives in October. Both airliners crashed after an automated stall-prevention system dubbed MCAS, which wasn't on previous 737 models, pushed down the nose of the jets and overpowered pilot commands to pull out of steep dives.

The Senate Commerce Committee previously disclosed receiving several separate whistleblower complaints regarding the qualifications and activities of an FAA-created panel, called the Flight Standards Board, which in 2017 established mandatory training requirements for pilots transitioning to 737 MAX cockpits from older versions of Boeing's 737 family.

FAA officials have told the Senate panel they dismissed some of those complaints, substantiated others and were continuing to investigate still others. The committee and the agency haven't elaborated on what issues remain under scrutiny.

The emergence of whistleblower complaints also has been discussed by consumer activist Ralph Nader, who lost a young relative on the Ethiopian jet and has issued a public call for whistleblowers to provide more information to investigators. Demonstrators supported by Mr. Nader are expected to converge on Boeing's annual meeting in Chicago on Monday.

Write to Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

April 27, 2019 22:47 ET (02:47 GMT)

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