Sam Salehpour, who worked for the plane manufacturer for over a decade, told the newspaper in an interview on Tuesday that the sections of the plane's fuselage were incorrectly fastened together and could even break apart in midair after 1,000 flights.
The whistleblower said that the problems were due to changes in the way the fuselage sections were put together in the assembly line, adding that the parts came from different manufacturers and did not have exactly the same shape where they were supposed to fit together.
Boeing dismissed Salehpour's claims as "inaccurate," saying it was "fully confident in the 787 Dreamliner," the newspaper reported. At the same time, the company conceded that the changes had been made, but left "no impact on durability or safe longevity of the airframe," spokesman Paul Lewis was quoted as saying.
Despite that, the chairman of the US Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Richard Blumenthal, said in a statement on Tuesday that a hearing will be held with Salehpour next week "regarding Boeing's broken safety culture."
This is not the first time a Boeing aircraft has struggled with mishaps this year. In January, the FAA temporarily grounded all Boeing 737 Max 9 planes in the United States after a door panel blew out on an Alaska Airlines flight.
On March 11, around 50 people were injured as a Boeing 787 Dreamliner plane of Chile-based LATAM Airlines experienced a "technical problem" en route from Australia's Sydney to New Zealand's Auckland.