But as Dorsey worked on the Boeing 777 and 787 Dreamliner across the 1990s and 2000s as more manufacturing was outsourced, he said things began to unravel, leading to “chaos” filtering down the chain of command and “substandard work” being accepted.

But in 1997, Dorsey said that upper management was thrown into disarray upon Boeing’s merger with McDonnell Douglas, a major American aerospace and defense company before the acquisition.

A broad swathe of leadership ranks were filled by McDonnell Douglas veterans – not Boeing executives – many of whom had backgrounds in finance rather than engineering.