A world-renowned aircraft structures expert John Hart Smith has told the Seattle Times and Airlineratings.com that the Boeing 787 is safe.

Responding to a Boeing whistleblower and engineer Sam Salehpour's claim that small gaps in the 787 created when fuselage sections are joined could cause a catastrophic accident, Hart-Smith has said that "the gaps are too small to make that happen."

“It’s not a safety issue.”

The Seattle Times, Dominic Gates explains the issue thus:

"These gaps are not along the circumference of the join but inside the aircraft, between the splice plate and the skin of the fuselage.

"Salehpour claims the forces Boeing mechanics apply to close these gaps during final assembly can damage the carbon composite skin around the fasteners at the join — risking a major structural failure."

"Hart-Smith believes Salehpour is mistaken. His analysis supports Boeing’s insistence that the 787 fuselage gaps are not a safety risk."

Hart-Smith from Melbourne Australia, is famous at Boeing for not only his scientific pedigree but also as a strident critic of the company warning it that cost-cutting was shortsighted.

A fellow of the prestigious Royal Aeronautical Society, Hart-Smith — now 83 and retired from Boeing since 2008, though he consulted for the jet maker until 2015 — still writes scientific papers for aerospace engineering journals on how to economically build sound aircraft structures.

After obtaining his engineering doctorate in Australia, in 1968 he joined Douglas Aircraft, the commercial aircraft division of McDonnell Douglas, which later became part of Boeing and attained the status of senior technical fellow, the highest level of engineer at the company.

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