and here to talk more about it is john nance, aviation analyst for abc news, whom you saw in that piece. hi, john. thanks for your time. how are you? >> oh, good to be here. i'm good i'm good. >> thank you. so how common is the 787 dreamliner model who flies it. and on which routes? >> it's flown all over the world. now it's a beautiful airplane. it is one of the first airplanes. uh- certainly the only one uh- that has been produced before airbus got into the run with a carbon fiber methodology. and that opens them up for a little bit of additional scrutiny whenever anything happens. but for somebody to say that it might fall apart in the air ignores the fact that every jetliner out there, including what airbus builds, are built in sections and wedded together. and if you've got 150 foot long fuselage and you put the two pieces together, you're not going to have a perfect circle. that's why there are procedures for putting them in place. uh- with the shims and other degrees of force that are very carefully controlled. so i don't find i don't find this very believable from the gentleman

today, on getting answers, i spoke with aviation analyst john nance. >> this is a watershed moment for boeing. it doesn't mean that they are going downhill in terms of overall quality. it does mean that they've got to change the way they view on the front lines. their responsibilities towards personal responsibilities, towards safety, and that's what's been slipping over time. the idea that they could they could have things wrong with the airplane as it's going down the production line, but still push it to the next position on the line, rather than stopping the line and making sure it was right. >> boeing says it does encourage employees to say something and speak up if they see something wrong. >> governor newsom says the chp organized retail task force is making a difference, according to newsom's office, the task force has conducted 185 investigations so far this year. they've led to 474 arrests and the recovery of more than $160,000 in stolen goods valued at $4.2 million. the task force, first formed in 2019, includes not only the chp but also personnel from local police departmen

phaeupt nance and -- maintenance and i think created a program called national plan for aviation maintenance. and then at that time one board member of ntsb who was later elected to ntsb, the honorable john, pushed on this a lot. the issue of aviation maintenance, ma'am, is extremely sensitive to the human factors and safety culture issues that my colleague is talking about here. sen. blackburn: ok, let me do this. dr. dillinger, let me come to you because i know you conducted hours of interviews for the safety report that you produced. did you speak with any of the whistleblowers when you conducted those interviews? dr. dillinger: as far as i recollect, we did not speak to -- sen. blackburn: why did you not talk to any of the whistleblowers? dr. dillinger: that was not what the pursue of the panel and at the time i don't think we were aware of the whistleblowers. sen. blackburn: ok. let me ask you this, then. does boeing do enough to ensure that their employees know that there will be no retaliation if they come forward and report safety issues? ms. dillinger: the panel believes they need to do a lot more than what they are currently doing. sen. blackburn: and, you know, one of the thin