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In August 2024, Sam Smith lost his faith.
Smith, 43, was part of an army of contractors hired to staff a new final checkpoint at Spirit AeroSystems' mammoth factory in Wichita, Kan., inspecting 737 fuselages before they shipped to Boeing’s Renton plant. There, Boeing mechanics would add wings, set up electrical systems and finish the planes.
Smith’s work in the summer of 2024 was a small part of Boeing’s sprawling effort to claw back its reputation after a midair blowout that January over Portland, a push that saw Boeing’s CEO replaced and, many observers say, its ethos shift back toward building the safest planes in the skies. Boeing executives saw the new checkpoint where Smith worked as instrumental to that push.
When Smith arrived in Wichita in May 2024, he was eager to be a part of Boeing and Spirit’s turnaround. But, after a few months on the job, he came to believe the companies were not fulfilling the promise of the final checkpoint. Defects were still traveling from Wichita to Renton.
Speaking with The Seattle Times, Smith shared allegations related to fuselage quality, the overall inspection regime and a host of other issues, including a concern about inspecting one piece of the 737.
The Times' reporting, which included interviews with current and former workers, former accident investigators and aerospace safety advocates, indicates the companies' early efforts to improve the quality of fuselages didn't immediately stick, leaving Spirit workers concerned the supplier would slip back to its old habits.
In June 2024, Smith sent a defect-riddled fuselage — line unit No. 9040 — back to Spirit mechanics to be reworked, chalking up a small victory and, to Smith, illustrating the very reason the final checkpoint was needed.
Weeks later, though, a colleague approached Smith with a concern; a mechanic in Boeing’s Renton factory texted him to complain about a fuselage shipped from Wichita, according to a screenshot of the conversation viewed by The Seattle Times.
“Ouch!” Smith’s colleague responded, and asked for the line unit number to check Spirit’s records.
No. 9040, the mechanic responded.
The fuselage Smith thought had been sent back for repairs had instead arrived in Renton with the same defects he had spotted, he said. Spirit, it seemed to Smith, was overriding the very system set up to limit the flow of defective aircraft parts into the Renton factory.
“We are humans, we make mistakes, but you have to be 100% with everything,” Smith said of his work. “If you pass one (defect), you’re going to pass more.”
While Boeing and Spirit have acknowledged persistent, widespread quality problems at the Wichita factory, both contest Smith’s allegations. Spokespeople for both companies said Smith's concerns did not affect airplane safety and that, over the past year, the quality and safety of their products has improved.
In the case of unit No. 9040, Spirit spokesperson Joe Buccino said the defects were identified" and "reworked" in Boeing's factory. An investigation of Smith's other complaints found his concerns were "not validated" or had previously been corrected, Buccino said.
Doug Ackerman, Boeing's vice president of quality, said the companies set up the final checkpoint in roughly five weeks, a massive industrial and organizational feat. A few months passed before it could "operate efficiently," he said.
“The scale of what we were committing to do was not apparent when we first did it,” Ackerman said. “We set it up quickly and that took some refinement and evolution of the process. It’s gotten pretty smooth and well-refined at this point.”
Smith acknowledges a lot has changed at the Wichita factory since he left a year ago. But he never learned how Spirit and Boeing addressed the deficiencies he spotted. The uncertainty haunted him as he worked to rebuild his life outside of Wichita.
Hunting for errors
Back in 2016, after four years as a Spirit mechanic, Smith had an experience that shaped his approach to inspections for years to come.
Smith and a colleague discovered that primer meant to protect fuselage panels would flake when struck with a rivet gun. The pair continued to push for a solution, Smith recalled, even after managers dismissed their concerns.
The discovery, and their perseverance, ultimately won Smith a congratulatory visit from Spirit’s then-CEO Tom Gentile. That practice — raising concerns as he sees them, even in the face of resistance — would guide Smith’s career.
He spent the next decade in and out of Spirit’s factory. He left in 2019, after two fatal 737 MAX crashes caused the supplier to slow production. He returned in 2022 when production ramped up, drawn back by the pay and because, as Smith puts it, building aircraft was “the most complete I’ve ever felt.”
But Smith grew disappointed.
Parts were stacked haphazardly, with no indication where they belonged, he said. Mechanics scavenged for pieces at the start of their shifts.
Without adequate training or time to learn skills, new hires made mistakes. Fearful of retaliation, they looked for creative work-arounds to fix an error, Smith alleged.
When defects were identified, leaders on the factory floor didn’t want them documented, Smith said.
Worn down, Smith resigned in September 2023.
He didn’t stay away for long. Before he returned, though, a panel flew off a Boeing 737 MAX 9 midair near Portland, prompting months of scrutiny as safety regulators worked to understand how such a flawed plane had left Boeing’s factory.
Investigators now know the panel flew off because Boeing mechanics in Renton, repairing mistakes made in Wichita, failed to properly reinstall the piece.
Smith, worried the problems in Wichita contributed to the blowout, filed a report with Boeing’s ethics department. While he waited for a response, Smith decided he would try to fix the factory from within, returning to Spirit’s plant in May 2024 as a contractor.
Going through a separation with his wife, Smith moved from Michigan to Kansas with his adult children. Together, they liked to play golf, build model ships and attend car shows.
In Wichita, Smith hoped to start a side business repairing classic cars with his son, but that venture never got off the ground. Just a few months after moving back, Smith would be out of work.
"Flow day zero"
Boeing also hoped to fix Spirit from the inside. In July 2024, Boeing announced it would reacquire Spirit, bringing the supplier back in-house after spinning it off 20 years before. The companies expect the acquisition will be finalized this year.
In the meantime, Boeing increased its presence at Spirit, adding the final catchall inspection at the end of the Wichita line.
Boeing called that final check “flow day zero,” using its internal lingo that assigns tasks to a certain “flow day,” or station, in the factory. “Flow day one” starts in Renton. Spirit called the new inspection point “final product verification.” The final line has room for nine fuselages to be inspected at once.
In May 2024, as the new checkpoint got off the ground, Smith found many of the old problems persisted.
Smith was supposed to perform a “shoulder-to-shoulder” inspection with a Spirit employee, walking side-by-side down the length of a fuselage, marking defects with tape before switching sides and checking each other’s work.
His Spirit counterparts rarely showed up for the walk-through, Smith said, and if they did, they would sometimes wander off.
Two Spirit inspectors told Smith they had been trained in fabrication and were unqualified to check fuselages, he alleged. The protocol changed week to week, Smith said. “They could not get a stable plan going.”
Spirit denies these allegations. Though some employees transferred from other departments, every inspector received task-specific training and was qualified for the work, Buccino said.
In his inspections, Smith found that defects made it through Spirit’s entire production line, passing checkpoints set up to spot mistakes. When he brought those concerns to Spirit managers, none took action, Smith said.
A former inspector who worked alongside Smith said Spirit was among “the most undisciplined factories I’ve ever worked in.” Boeing managers were hands-off, according to the former inspector, who asked to remain anonymous to protect future job prospects.
Smith seemed unusually zealous, like he was on a personal "fishing expedition" to uncover major mistakes in Spirit's work, the inspector said. But “because of how bad that factory was,” the inspector didn’t doubt there were problems to be found.
Dents and questions
Smith soon noticed a pattern that concerned him.
On a series of fuselages he inspected from June to August 2024, Smith said he discovered dents in the aft pressure bulkhead, a 9-foot dome at the back of the plane separating the cabin from the tail.
Those dents were not inherently worrisome; Boeing’s specifications allow some dents in the aft pressure bulkhead, as long as they are not too deep or too close to one another.
Inspectors measure the dents and write the depth, measured by thousandths of an inch, in marker on the fuselage. If dents exceed a certain depth, inspectors pass those numbers to Spirit’s engineering department, which then determines if the defect needs to be reworked.
If not, Spirit's engineering department marks the fuselage “use as is” and sends it down the production line.
By the time Smith was inspecting a fuselage, it had been cleared. But Smith said he saw fuselages he believed were not up to Boeing’s standard.
Boeing and Spirit disagree. Spirit identified dents in the aft pressure bulkhead of some 737 fuselages between June and August last year, Spirit spokesperson Buccino said. Some dents required rework, he continued.
“Spirit and Boeing conducted a comprehensive investigation that included reviewing documentation, interviewing personnel and examining affected components,” Buccino said earlier this year. “Our investigation found all the quality concerns raised were either not validated or previously reported with corrective actions already worked with no further action required.
“None of these issues affected airplane safety.”
"Mind blowing stuff"
Smith set out to measure the dents himself but came up short.
As Smith described it, two Spirit inspectors told him they would have to "guess" at measurements at the very top of the bulkhead. Those inspectors told Smith "we don't have the tools to measure that over here," according to a recording of the conversation shared with The Seattle Times.
Concerned that Spirit inspectors allowed planes to move forward with imprecise measurements, Smith filed a complaint with Boeing.
The company initially heeded Smith’s warning, according to his records and his recounting of the weeks that followed. After a meeting to discuss Smith's complaint, a Boeing manager texted Smith to thank him.
“Mind blowing stuff you shared,” the manager wrote, according to a screenshot provided to The Seattle Times. “I am thankful we have you on our team to uphold the integrity of this place.”
Smith never saw the outcome of his report.
In August 2024, Smith said managers instructed him not to work any overtime and to step down as a “lead” inspector.
A Spirit employee whom Smith originally asked about the measurements angrily approached him one night, accusing Smith of “throwing him under the bus” with management, Smith recalled.
Smith requested a transfer to another facility or assignment but never got approval. The contracting firm continued to send him paychecks through November.
That month, Boeing and Spirit representatives notified Smith they had closed their investigations, determining the allegations could not be substantiated.
In response to questions from The Seattle Times, Boeing and Spirit said they have a variety of tools for measuring dents in the bulkhead. The location and type of defect dictate which one is used, said Brett Lewis, director of engineering for the 737 program. Employees are trained on that process, Lewis said, and the correct instructions should be included in engineering documents.
“We treat every dimple, every depression, every scratch, every tool mark as a defect that needs to be mitigated,” Lewis said.
A spokesperson for Boeing said the company uses "multiple layers of inspections to ensure our airplanes are built according to exacting specifications" and encourages "teammates to speak up if they see a potential issue."
In response to Smith's allegations, the spokesperson continued, Boeing and Spirit teams "followed the process to ensure the part and the airplane met specifications and regulatory requirements before delivery.
But Smith said the companies didn’t share what they had learned through the investigation of his complaint or how they had reached their decision, leaving him wanting more answers.
Nearly a year later, he has stopped hoping for a more satisfying conclusion.
Observers, insiders see slow improvement
Boeing and Spirit's efforts over the past year are making a difference, according to public statements and interviews with Boeing executives, airlines that buy Boeing planes, employees at both companies and even Smith himself. The Federal Aviation Administration in September restored Boeing's ability to self-certify the airworthiness of some planes, a sign the regulator believes the company is improving.
Spirit has been “aggressive” in tackling production issues, Boeing’s Ackerman said, and has invested in new technologies to automate some processes, decreasing the risk for errors.
Two of Smith’s colleagues who spoke to The Seattle Times for this story agreed the inspection process is improving, even though, they said, the starting bar was very low.
Hassan Shahidi, the president and CEO of the nonprofit Flight Safety Foundation, said he isn’t surprised to hear inspectors within Spirit’s factory were dissatisfied with the state of the operation last year. That sentiment doesn’t mean Boeing’s efforts aren’t working, he said. It shows that an overhaul takes time.
“There’s been improvements, but there’s work to be done,” Shahidi said. “I don’t think we should be under any illusion that this should happen overnight.”
A second chance
In January, Spirit agreed to pay Smith $5,000 to settle his dispute, according to a copy of the settlement viewed by The Seattle Times.
Still, Smith's time at Spirit cost him a lot.
His three kids moved with him to Kansas in 2024 but, without a job for 10 months of the last year, Smith couldn’t support his family.
His 18-year-old daughter lost access to vital medication and treatment when Smith lost his health insurance. He was in the process of receiving dental implants, and has been without most of his teeth since he lost the contracting job.
The emotional toll of policing an aerospace conglomerate wore on him. He started jumping at shadows, afraid of people outside his home and worried his digital communications were compromised.
He applied to countless aerospace jobs but couldn’t get his foot in the door. He was contacted by a Spirit recruiter more than once, but never secured an interview.
In September, though, Smith moved with his 20-year-old son to West Lafayette, Ind., a small city outside of Indianapolis that is home to Purdue University and a new Saab factory. There, Smith helps build T-7A Redhawk jet trainers as a contractor for a Saab-Boeing team. Smith and his son live in a Drury Hotel, covered by Saab’s per diem.
Most of the family’s belongings fit in their car.
But Smith is grateful for the work and the promise of returning to an industry that invigorated him.
“I’m not crying. I made it here safely. I got the job, have my first paycheck due this weekend,” Smith said in a recent interview. “I’ll build myself back up. But it cost me everything to get here.”
At work, Smith no longer looks for problems to fix. He’s a mechanic now and enjoys building, instead of hunting for mistakes in his colleagues’ painstaking work.
“I’m just looking to do my job and go home,” Smith said. “I don’t want to lose this second chance.”
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