A Boeing employee who spent more than three decades with the company says he was stripped of his compliance duties, downgraded in his performance review, and effectively pushed out of his role after repeatedly warning executives and federal regulators about safety hazards tied to the KC-46 military tanker program in Puget Sound. Randall Fauver, who began working for Boeing in 1989, filed a federal lawsuit alleging the company retaliated against him for years of whistleblowing on workplace hazards and quality problems affecting the aircraft.
A Career Compliance Leader Turned Whistleblower
Fauver filed his civil complaint against The Boeing Company on September 25 in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Washington, where it was assigned case number 2:2026cv03616, according to court filing records. The lawsuit was filed on his behalf by Seattle attorney Michael C. Subit. As first reported by KING 5 News, Fauver moved to Boeing Defense, Space & Security in 2001 and became a compliance leader for the division's Puget Sound operations around 2015.
Beginning in 2023, per the same account, Fauver reported employee safety, product quality and process concerns tied to the KC-46 — a military refueling and transport aircraft developed from the 767 airliner. Among his allegations: center fuel cell rework put workers in hazardous conditions, hexavalent chromium dust exposures required medical attention, and some employees worked in conditions requiring respirators. He also alleged problems with subcontractor rework, some of which he said affected aircraft flight safety.
Reports Reached the Air Force and the Justice Department
Fauver's complaint states he reported his concerns not only to Boeing executives and the company's ethics and investigations operations, but also to the U.S. Air Force, the Department of Justice, the Department of Defense, and the Defense Contract Management Agency. After Boeing submitted a corrective action report in 2023, the DCMA reportedly asked Fauver to conduct a detailed investigation, which identified about 140 underlying causes tied to the problems, the outlet's report notes. He later submitted another corrective action report to both the DCMA and Boeing's legal department, this time alleging improper handling of explosives associated with the KC-46.
The complaint also describes employees entering a safety-restricted area containing hexavalent chromium without protective equipment, and workers being certified for oxygen servicing without proper training — an issue that reportedly led Boeing to shut down its oxygen-servicing program for three days. That history of chemical exposure at Boeing's local manufacturing plants isn't new: internal industrial hygiene records released in 2023 showed airborne levels of hexavalent chromium at the company's Everett facility exceeded legal limits, prompting Boeing's own hygiene specialists to warn executives back in 2020 that hundreds of workers were at risk of cancer, according to The Daily Herald.
Discipline, a Demotion, and a Downgraded Evaluation
According to the complaint, Boeing issued Fauver corrective action memos in 2023, 2024 and 2025, and suspended him for five days in 2024. After he returned from Family and Medical Leave Act leave that year, he says he was listed as a reviewer on newly published ground operating procedures he had never actually reviewed — an issue he reported to Boeing's ethics department and the DCMA. He filed a retaliation complaint with the Department of Defense Office of Inspector General in 2025.
Fauver alleges Boeing leaders then told him he could accept a new operations analyst position or be laid off. He took the new role, but says it stripped him of all his compliance responsibilities and barred him from communicating with his former compliance group and the DCMA. He filed another inspector general complaint alleging the transfer itself was retaliatory. Fauver says he then received a 1-out-of-5 rating on his 2025 performance evaluation, which prevented a merit salary increase and reduced his bonus. He is seeking reinstatement, economic, compensatory and punitive damages, along with attorney's fees, interest and other court-determined relief. Boeing has been asked for comment regarding the lawsuit, per the outlet's report.
Federal Protections and a Pattern of KC-46 Trouble
Fauver's claims are brought under federal whistleblower, False Claims Act and Family and Medical Leave Act provisions. Under 10 U.S.C. § 4701, the Defense Contractor Whistleblower Protection Act explicitly bars defense contractors from discharging, demoting or discriminating against employees who disclose contract mismanagement or gross safety hazards to federal inspectors or agency leadership, according to FindLaw. Under that statute, plaintiffs need only show that protected whistleblowing was a contributing factor in an adverse personnel decision — a relatively low burden of proof. Separately, federal acquisition regulations implementing Section 883 of the National Defense Authorization Act bar the Department of Defense from awarding contracts to companies that require employees to sign confidentiality agreements restricting disclosures of waste, fraud or abuse, per Acquisition.gov DFARS rules.
The allegations land against a backdrop of documented technical trouble on the KC-46 program. The Air Force's KC-46 Pegasus fleet has faced severe Category 1 operational deficiencies since deliveries began in 2019, including chronic fuel system leaks first identified during flight testing and ongoing defects in its Remote Vision System, according to Air & Space Forces Magazine. An Air Force investigation released in June revealed a KC-46 suffered nearly $10 million in damage during a July 2025 aerial refueling mishap off the Virginia coast, when a refueling boom detached from an F-22 Raptor and struck the tanker's tail, as reported by Business Insider.
Part of a Broader Whistleblower Pattern at Boeing
Fauver's suit follows a string of internal quality-control disclosures across Boeing's programs. In April 2024, Boeing quality engineer Sam Salehpour testified before a U.S. Senate subcommittee alleging structural gap and shimming defects in 787 fuselages, part of a pattern Hoodline has previously reported on. In 2024, Boeing also agreed to plead guilty to federal corporate fraud charges and pay nearly $700 million in penalties and restitution to the Department of Justice following the fatal 737 MAX crashes.
The case also arrives as Boeing works to reset its relationship with both regulators and its Puget Sound workforce. The FAA restored Boeing's authority to perform final airworthiness sign-offs on newly manufactured 737 MAX and 787 aircraft in mid-2026, following years of heightened oversight, while the company also reached a tentative four-year labor agreement with the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, representing roughly 17,000 engineers and technical workers across the region. Fauver's allegations remain unproven claims in an active lawsuit, but they add another name to a growing line of Boeing whistleblowers alleging career retaliation after flagging concerns to federal authorities like the DCMA and the Department of Defense Inspector General.
