Kriti Mehrotra
With Netflix’s ‘Freefall: A Reckoning for Boeing’ exploring the alleged safety failures and quality concerns at the titular aerospace giant over the past couple of decades, we get a true expose. This sequel of ‘Downfall: The Case Against Boeing’ incorporates not only archival footage but also exclusive interviews with several whistleblowers to really underscore the reported transgressions. Amongst those to come forward is Sam Salehpour, who has not only been an Engineer in the industry for over 45 years but has also been employed by Boeing as a Quality Engineer since 2007.
Sam Salehpour Has Been With Boeing Through the Good Times and the Bad
Although Sam Salehpour has always preferred to keep the details of his background well away from the limelight owing to privacy concerns, we do know he arrived in the United States in 1973. He hoped not only to build a better life for himself but also to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Missouri, which he proudly earned 6 years later. He subsequently kick-started his dream career as an Aerospace Engineer/Rocket Scientist, working either with NASA or NASA-affiliated organizations throughout the 1980s, 1990s, and early 2000s.
“I was a Rocket Scientist for a long time, but I wanted to move to airplanes,” by the mid-2000s, Sam said in the film. “I wanted to work at the best airplane manufacturer in the world.” Therefore, he secured the position of Quality Engineer at The Boeing Company in Renton, Washington, in 2007 – he was glad for the opportunity and eager to prove his mettle in every way. According to his own account, when he first started at the corporation, the production process was almost immaculate as “you had 2-3 eyes on everything… to just make sure it was accurate.” However, he claims that as the years passed, the leadership changed, and the demand increased, he began noticing many shortcuts being taken to meet deadlines as well as increase profits.
Sam alleges that when he started working on the 787 Dreamliner planes in late 2020, he observed serious safety issues due to embedded debris and excessive stress on major joints. “When you are operating at 35,000 feet, details the size of a human hair can be a matter of life and death,” he once said to underscore the weight of such changes/oversight in manufacturing. He claimed these could likely significantly reduce the aircraft’s usual lifespan, but when he tried to raise these concerns with his managers and the higher-ups, he was allegedly retaliated against. As per records, he was involuntarily transferred from the Dreamliner program to the 777 program, where he claims he noticed similar safety issues on the assembly line almost immediately.
Despite Allegedly Being Put Through “Hell,” Whistleblower Sam Salehpour Remains a Dedicated Boeing Employee
When Sam first realized there were alleged defects in the joining areas of airplane production, he raised his concerns through the Speak Up forms in hopes of receiving a quick resolution. However, he claims what happened next was not at all what he expected. “My boss came to my desk, chewed me out, and he said, ‘I would have killed someone who said what you said’,” he stated in the documentary. “What did I say? I said, we need to consider engineering fundamentals.” Nevertheless, he continued to speak up against what he saw as problematic and potentially life-threatening for flyers, even after he was transferred and his car’s tire was allegedly slashed. He can’t prove whether the incident involving his tire was work-related, but he believes it was.
“A lot of my coworkers were really scared to come forward, even within the company,” Sam admitted in the film. “But when I see a problematic area that could cause loss of life, I’m gonna speak up until my face is blue.” He thus kept on following up on his safety concerns, reporting new ones if he found them, and keeping a well-documented record of everything just to be safe. According to his account, things got a little strange over time as he felt physically threatened, and his boss once called him on his personal phone to berate him for over half an hour. “It threw me off,” he said in the Netflix original. “I was waking up with nightmares at 3 o’clock every morning. I was talking to 3 different psychologists at the time to just be able to cope with it.”
Sam has since candidly admitted that he was scared, but he never saw not speaking up as an option because he knew real lives were at risk. “I promised myself I will be speaking up regardless of the consequences,” he stated. It was in 2024 that the veteran engineer spoke out publicly as a whistleblower for the first time, going as far as to testify during a Senate Subcommittee on the matter on April 17. He laid out all his claims while specifying none of them were minor because, in his opinion, Boeing is essentially “putting out defective airplanes.” He then elaborated on the company’s “culture of retaliation” by asserting he was subjected to “hell,” yet conceded he would return to work at there as his job was protected by the federal Whistleblower Protection Act. Therefore, to this day, Sam continues to serve as a Quality Engineer at Boeing in Washington, where he is determined to bring about a positive change from the inside out. As for his personal experiences, from what we can tell, he prefers to lead a private life surrounded by his loving family.
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