- A Boeing whistleblower told CNN he refused to fly on a plane he’d boarded after realizing it was a Boeing 737 Max.
- Ed Pierson said he’d deliberately made sure the plane wasn’t a 737 Max prior to booking.
- Pierson spent 10 years at Boeing and testified to Congress in 2019 about its factory in Renton, Washington.
A Boeing whistleblower says that he was meant to take a domestic flight last year but ended up leaving the plane before takeoff because he refused to travel on a Boeing 737 Max.
Ed Pierson, a former senior manager at Boeing, told CNN that he was meant to fly from Seattle to New Jersey with Alaska Airlines. He said that he made sure to select a flight that didn’t use a Boeing 737 Max.
Pierson’s flight was in 2023, prior to the January 2024 Alaska Airlines door plug blowout.
“I walked onto the plane — I thought, it’s kinda new,” Pierson said. “Then I sat down and on the emergency card it said it was a Max.”
He quickly got off the plane just as a flight attendant was closing the front door, he said.
Pierson told CNN that he managed to book onto an Alaska redeye flight leaving that evening that wasn’t on a Max. He said he had to spend the day at the airport but it was worth it.
Business Insider has contacted Alaska Airlines for comment about the apparent last-minute change of aircraft, and Boeing regarding Pierson’s comments.
Pierson previously told the Los Angeles Times that he would “absolutely not” fly on a 737 Max because of safety concerns.
Pierson worked at Boeing between 2008 and 2018. He has said that during his time working at Boeing’s 737 Factory in Renton, Washington, he witnessed overworked employees, parts shortages, and quality issues, which he said made the planes produced by the factory unsafe. He said he recommended to the company’s leadership that it close down production at the factory but it ignored his requests.
Pierson testified to Congress in 2019 about production in the factory after two Max 8 crashes in October 2018 and March 2019 killed nearly 350 people — all the passengers and crew on board.
Safety concerns about Boeing jets have resurfaced after an Alaska Airlines Max 9 lost a door plug in midair in January, prompting the Federal Aviation Administration to temporarily ground models of the plane with the same door plug and to make Boeing stop expanding its production of the 737 Max.
