Why are Boeing Employees So Cowed?

I recently wondered why such a person as me was thrust into this position--Why was I the only one "brave" enough at Boeing to turn the massive fraud across the Boeing enterprise in Quality Assurance Management into the FAA?

Why?--I was by no means the best person for that job. Someone that had more drive to act with the requisite urgency in order to save the lives that are obviously placed in jeopardy by Boeing's systemic frauds against the public and taxpayer would have been much better than me. 

Someone not so trusting and naive who could have therefor plotted a better course through the corruption in the oversight agencies whose only job is to stop companies like Boeing from committing this RICO-like "working together with similarly corrupt agencies" fraud would have been much better in the scheme of things.

Someone who was more photogenic and perhaps actually enjoyed being on the news rather than cringing at the thought would perhaps had been better than me--certainly someone who had less resemblance than I do to the character "Hurley" on the TV "Lost" would have been a better spokesman for the public (and the military personnel that Boeing and the FAA were placing at greater risks for more personal financial gain) than I am.

I had heard many employees over the years say that they were thinking about going to the FAA, just as I ultimately also believed I had to do for the safety of those on Boeing airplanes.

They saw the same fraud as I did--the corrupt QA Managers at Boeing who worked every day to destroy the Boeing quality system as opposed to what their true jobs were supposed to be. They were corrupt QA Managers (that were statutorily supposed to be firewalled off from the corrupting influences of other company departments) who worshiped at the altar of Cost and Schedule only--Quality and Safety be damned.

However, the almost wholly corrupt QA Management at Boeing saw that the corruption in other Boeing Management made it a much better career decision for them to grovel even lower than Manufacturing and Engineering Management did and "worship" solely the same two "gods"--Cost and Schedule--that other Boeing Managers did, even though they knew their true regulation required jobs were to protect Quality and Safety only, and to protect those two critical items for the sake of public and military lives at all costs, as the much less corrupt FAA of old had seen that such groveling of Quality personnel before other company production departments ultimately led to deadly crashes. 

Still, knowing the criticality of their uniquely important jobs being independent of other departments that historically tried to save money by ignoring every requirement possible--even obviously critical quality and safety ensuring processes, corrupt QA Management at Boeing did as directed and surrendered their required independence from historically non-quality and non-safety driven departments in totality. 

They actually defiled their jobs by taking orders from, and carrying out the solely Cost and Schedule driven goals of Manufacturing as their own goals. 

In so doing, they became the same shills they ensured the inspectors who reported to them were or were made to become--merely pretending to do their jobs for a week every two years around FAA ACSEP audit time (and, as one of my corrupt QA supervisors told us, "the FAA Aviation Safety Inspectors don't look very deep," so no one had to even do a good job of pretending to do their jobs to pass such ACSEP audits easily), with the rest of their time spent taking orders from Manufacturing Managers of their same level who they were supposed to independently ensure the quality, safety, and reliability requirements of their department's work. Illegal, no, but surely a conflict of interest, to say the least. 

Instead, they became enablers of both Manufacturing and QA fraud across the enterprise. After all, per their sick way of thinking, ensuring Boeing aircraft had the required minimum levels of quality, safety, and reliability was totally "non-value added" to Boeing's bottom line--So what if massive amounts of defects the customers might never notice were delivered with each Boeing airplane to their mostly unsuspecting customers? Defrauding the passengers, crew, and our military personnel out of their safety was a no brainer to these types of criminals. 

Even if a crash occurred because of their intentional fraud, not even the most expert CSI or NTSB personnel in the world could make sense of the cause of the crash because the resulting small pieces of people and debris that resulted automatically would cover up the crime. Boeing could then put their "value-added" P.R. machine into action and immediately start blaming the dead pilots of the doomed aircraft as occurred in the two 737 rudder hardover accidents that killed all on board. It was with great reluctance that Boeing gave up blaming the dead pilots and admitted that it might have been the rudder hydraulic actuator system at fault in those tragic crashes. 

Such is the way the fraudulent QMS system intentionally doesn't work at Boeing. They have brainwashed themselves and some of the lesser minded in the public that anything required by law that they don't do behind the closed doors of BCA factories that doesn't result in airplanes or pieces of airplanes constantly falling from the sky like rain onto the public means the FAA-approved Quality System they are required by law to follow is truly "non-value added," and they are therefore right to ignore it and simply go through the motions of pretending to comply with it--Never mind that no airplane can be delivered by a company until they have a quality system that supposedly complies with the FAA approved quality system and they are granted a Production Certificate by the FAA.

Of course, with the FAA Management overlooking this fraud ongoing on Boeing production lines being several orders of magnitude more corrupt than the FAA Management fingered in the fraud exposed between Southwest Airlines and the FAA, it is no wonder Boeing's Production Certificate has no more value than any generic sheet of paper used to construct an airplane for a paper airplane contest. 

The corrupt FAA Management still in place in the Transport Airplane Directorate, (which Nick Sabatini at FAA Headquarters protects by looking the other way from all of the still ongoing fraud within that part of the agency), has yet to be "Stuckeyed," or brought to justice for intentionally placing the lives of the public and military at much greater risk. They do so by "overlooking" the fraud of corrupt Boeing Management, (who they consider as their only real customer) who in many cases are their dreamed for "quid pro quo" future employers (for the services they rendered over the years unto those corrupt Boeing Managers before their FAA retirements after short twenty year stints at the agency). Because of their corruption, after retirement they can get hired by Boeing or one of numerous industry associations that Boeing is the main contributor to at multiples of the salary and benefits they didn't earn while at the FAA.

Hopefully the fraud still ongoing between Boeing and FAA Management placing the public and military at risk will receive the same or more attention soon that the Southwest Airlines/FAA debacle did both in the press and in Congress.

I know that people involved in this fraud do want to come forward to the appropriate authorities and report the fraud of their management. However, thinly veiled retaliation like Boeing and the officials they ensured were elected committed against me has given them pause, which is the real reason I am being attacked so over-zealously for something other employees at Boeing were only given a few days off for.

They also are afraid of retaliation like the two Southwest Airlines FAA whistleblowers experienced, and are looking to see if they are retaliated against again for going before Congress and doing the right thing. Hopefully those whistleblowers will escape further retaliation because they went before Congress and that will encourage those who want to come forward and tell what they know about the ongoing fraudulent relationship between Boeing and the FAA to do so. 

Yes, Boeing and FAA employees are cowardly, especially after what they've seen happen to me and other coworkers who even thought about coming forward or made the severe mistake of contacting the "Ethics" Department at Boeing about such fraud they witnessed and therefore just stuck a target on their foreheads just as I unwittingly did.

But who could blame them? They have families and mortgages. The good pay at Boeing serves as a deterrent to those who want to come forward because they know their job and the pay and benefits they worked so long and hard for will be in jeopardy if they do so.

I had no illusions when I decided to be the first one to ever go to the FAA about the corrupt Boeing QA Management I witnessed over the years. I knew at that point my job was most likely history. And that was years before my "infamous" collection of information for my report on Boeing and FAA Management fraud for the DOT OIG.

I never feared for my life, but my job was another matter. The corrupt "Boeing Management mafia" would try to terminate (and imprison, ultimately) me, no matter what farcical pretenses they had to manufacture or however much time or resources they had to expend to do it. In their corrupt eyes, they had to make me the poster child of what happens to a whistleblower at Boeing that dares expose their RICO-like relationship with FAA management.

I decided to do the right thing and come forward years before today, when the Congress (that used to look the other way from this fraud that was reported to them) is finally starting to pay attention to the criminal collusion between FAA Management and industry management via hearings in Congress and related FBI investigations.

Today is the time when those who have kept silent about all of the fraud around them should come forward at long last. We certainly do not want to wait to act until we have to dodge the parts of planes and body parts when we go outside, which is the level at which so many corrupted people think is the only point at which this kind of fraud could be considered a problem.

Although I was a pioneer in the field of whistleblowing on the fraudulent relationships between industry and FAA Management, I by no means want to be the only one to ever have enough courage to come forward. Indeed, in today's climate, many of the dangers I experienced do not exist. After participating in a Southwest airlines/FAA style hearing before Congress, even Boeing is not arrogant enough to screw with you like they screwed with me years before my arrest as retaliation for my going to the FAA and actually inspecting the jet engines, engine pylons, wing stub to body join, body structures, flight control systems, jet fuel samples, hydraulic fluid samples, etc., that I was assigned to only pretend to inspect over the years.

Yes, there are ample "close to home" reasons to be cowardly and not come forward as you know you should do. The Southwest Airlines FAA Aviation Safety Inspectors and I have broken the ground for you. There is, however, only one reason to come forward and tell what you know about FAA/Boeing Management fraud to Congress and/or the FBI--because you know deep down it is the right thing to do. The public and our military have the right to not have their lives placed intentionally at much greater risk by the fraud both you and I have witnessed over the years.

If you are like past conscientious Boeing employees, you may have kept a journal of incidents and fraudulent actions your management has told you to do or have done themselves in order to protect yourself in case that particular plane crashed because of that fraud. If you do decide to come forward, such data would be useful to the authorities, I'm sure.

It is long past time for the corrupt management of Boeing and the FAA to quit committing their daily frauds and quit thereafter going home to soundly sleep and dream of the rewards they hope they'll reap one day for those frauds that may reap many lives. It is time for them to start to toss and turn at night. They won't do so willingly because they intentionally place the public and our military in danger for benefit to their and the Boeing's bottom line. They are pathologically incapable of enough compassion to even start to care about the effect of their crimes. However, being the purely selfish creatures they are, they will toss and turn once you and others come forward and they are ultimately "Stuckeyed" to a prison bed for their golden years.

The time of cowardice has ended. There is no better time to be brave and stand up against the criminal management you work for that has made both Boeing quality assurance and Boeing's Production Certificate a farce.

The Last Inspector

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​A comment on this blog entry by juror 11:

It is interesting to note that as major airlines are taking aircraft out of service, supposedly to save fuel, that the bulk are 737's, and 747's. Airlines might want to find out which aircraft were inspected by Gerald Eastman and paint on their fuselage "inspected by Gerald Eastman." 

Given the choice in flying on an Eastman inspected aircraft, and one of the "bogus inspected" aircraft, I'd fly on one of Gerry's planes.
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My reply:

Thanks Juror 11 and "anonymous."

Juror 11,

Your comment brought to mind this true incident I put in my supplement to my original report to the FAA. I gave the report supplement that contained this quote to the FAA at the end of May, 2002, (edited here only to delete the names and occupations of the individuals involved and to make it easier to read):
 
"A cool event happened a week or two ago (it is 3/11/02 now). Due to my type of inspector, the "thorough" kind, is almost universally reviled at BCAG, because we sometimes "interfere" with the "untouchables"--cost and schedule--by our ethical documentation of defects, as opposed to doing the expected unethical thing, and passing them on to the customer, we rarely get praised directly, as that is taboo at BCAG. I heard this recent "praise" from my wife second hand, but it still gave me some little measure of satisfaction nonetheless:

(Name) and his wife, who live in our neighborhood, were at my wife’s work shopping. She was talking to him (he coincidentally works near me in the Strut Value Team on the production floor at PSD (the Propulsion Systems Division of BCA), when the subject of me came up, and my inspection style, or maybe it was my meeting with my supervisor I wrote of previously, I don’t remember clearly. 

He told my wife about an incident that happened when I was inspecting in the strut area before my banishment to an office make-work desk job for the "crime" (to corrupt Boeing QA and Manufacturing Management) of actually inspecting the struts and ensuring the defects I found during those inspections were eliminated before the struts' delivery to the customer as a critical part of their airplane. 

My neighbor/coworker overheard two adjacent Manufacturing Supervisors (I believe she said they were both Manufacturing Supervisors--I don’t want to ask her again, as she didn’t really want me to tell you of this incident) complaining about my thorough inspection ethic. 

He broke into the conversation, and asked them this question: 

If they were waiting at an airport to board a plane, and had a choice of two planes to board--one that was inspected by me, and one that was inspected by the average PSD inspector (the kind of inspector they wanted me to be at PSD)--which plane would they board? 

They both said they would board the plane inspected by me! 

Cool, huh? I think this incident says a lot about the ethics of Manufacturing Management. They must not fly much. 

Here is your answer, Mr./Ms. Anonymous:

King County Senior Prosecutor Scott Peterson did again today what has seemed to become a habit for him of late. He didn't show up to the hearing that I had to show up to and his replacement delayed the next "case setting" hearing for me until next Wednesday because (as they told my attorney) they were still considering how to go forward with the case. 

This is from a King County Prosecutor's office that told the public that King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg would decide within two weeks after the April 7th mistrial whether to retry me or not. That promise to the public expired on April 21st--some 6 1/2 weeks ago. I wonder when they will pull the trigger, although they have already assassinated my character without legal basis, a fact I trust Juror 11 and others will agree with.

I didn't have to appear before the judge--my attorney just gave me a slip of paper with the date and time of the next hearing on it. We are having difficulties getting the transcripts of the last trial before the next trial. Even though there may be no next trial, we have to prepare as if there is going to be one. We cannot be rushed into court again with little if any time to prepare a defense, gather supporting data via subpoena, and to gather the witnesses who wanted to testify on my behalf. And we can't let ourselves be hoodwinked again by a dishonest proseutor's office out of the access to critical evidence that was denied to us during the last trial by foot dragging by the prosecution in order to try to secure a conviction of me for a crime any first year law student could instantly deduce I did not commit. And we can't let their antics in ensuring the last unfair trial that consisted primarily of prevarication and obfuscation for the benefit of their major financial contributors Boeing and Perkins Coie to go on again without an adequate defense to prevent misplaced trust in this prosecutor's office (whose integrity literally died at the same moment former King County Prosecutor Norm Maleng died an untimely death) to short circuit the jury from actually deliberating the case on the facts rather than just the prosecution's prevarications and omissions. 

You learn weird things when you are stuck in this system this long. I thought the public had a right to the transcript of any trial. Not so, however. The court reporter just types away the whole trial and then boxes up those tapes without translating their "shorthand" into English. Only when someone coughs up enough money for the court reporter to transcribe those tapes into actual transcripts are they released. I believe there are other weird rules also, like the public can't see the transcript until the charges against me are resolved. If the public took an interest in how the system really doesn't work for the public and is certainly not fair to most unmoneyed defendants, then they might demand changes before they or a loved one end up doing time or being put to death for a crime they didn't commit because of this skewed system in which the ends justify the means.

Contact me directly if you wish for a more candid exchange of thoughts and detail than this public forum allows.

Thanks,

Gerald Eastman
The Last (Boeing) Inspector

A comment by GFS:

Bravo, Mr. Eastman.  I hope others will take a deep breath and step forward to help stop the corruption.  There are a lot of worker bees working for Boeing and other contractors who are bothered by what they are being asked to do, as they know it is neither ethical or legal in some cases.  It is time to fly right and we will all benefit from their resolution to help make it happen.
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