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Roger Boisjoly and the Challenger Disaster: Disloyal Employee Or Courageous Whistle-Blow>Er?

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Roger Boisjoly and the Challenger Disaster: Disloyal Employee Or Courageous Whistle-Blow>Er? Ethical Treatment of Employees 175 Part of BP's training problems, the panel "horrendously expensive" but has become more concluded, stems from a lack of financial back­ affordable in recent years, Erickson said. ing and workforce. That was especially evident Union officials hope to finalize new training at Texas City, where the training budget plum­ agreements with BP at a meeting at the end of meted from $2.8 million in 1998 to $1.7 mil­ this month, said Kim Nibarger, coordinator of lion in 2005, the year of the blast, the report the United Steelworkers' Triangle of Prevention stated. Full-time employees devoted to training Program. He said the union safety trainers have also dipped from 28 to 9 in the same period. long favored a more hands-on approach to train­ Even then, some of those training coordinators ing than the use of computer programs and test­ spent as little as 5 percent of their time actually ing. "We train on the small-group level," he said. training, the report said. Steve Erickson, exec­ "That's the way adults learn." utive director of the Gulf Coast Process Tech­ nology Alliance, said BP isn't the only oil Questions company that has reduced training positions in recent years as more training has been done 1. What would Faden and Beauchamp say by computer. Erickson, whose alliance advo­ about BP's worker safety practices? Explain. cates the hiring of degreed process technicians, 2. What would Boatright say about BP's said computer training is a good alternative to worker safety practices? Explain. classroom training when it comes to "general" 3. How would you characterize BP's attitude instruction. But computers should not take the toward its workers at the Texas City refin­ place of well-qualified people who know the pe­ ery? Is that attitude ethically acceptable in culiarities of a specific plant's equipment, he your judgment? Explain. said. He said simulators, similar to those used 4. Does BP's attitude seem more consistent in the aviation industry, are very helpful because with the stockholder view of the purpose of they teach workers how to react in emergency the corporation or the stakeholder view? situations. Simulation technology had been Why? Explain. Case 5. Roger Boisjoly and the Challenger Disaster: Disloyal Employee or Courageous Whistle-Blow>er? In the winter of 1985 Morton Thiokol Inc. STS 51-C Discovery. Morton Thiokol man­ engineer Roger Boisjoly conducted postflight aged the reusable rocket booster program analysis on the rocket boosters from NASA's for NASA's space shuttle program, and © 2007. This case was prepared by Denis G. Arnold for teaching purposes only and is based on the following sources: Report of the Presidential Commission on the Space Shuttle Challenger Accident, Washington, DC, June 6, 1986; Roger M. Boisjoly, "Ethical Decisions— Morton Thiokol and the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster." Online Ethics Center for Engineer­ ing, May 15, 2006, National Academy of Engineering. Available at www.onlineethics.org/CMS/profpractice/ ppessays/thiokolshuttle.aspx; "Memo from Roger Boisjoly on O-Ring Explosion," Morton Thiokol Inc., July 31, 1985. Online Ethics Center for Engineering August 29, 2006, National Academy of Engineering. Available at http://www.onlineethics.org/CMS/profpractice/exempindex/RB-intro/Erosion.aspx; and Russell P. Boisjoly, Ellen Foster Curtis, and Eugene Mellican, "Roger Boisjoly and the Challenger Disaster: The Ethical Dimensions," Journal oj Business Ethics 8 (April 1989): 217-30. 176 Ethical Treatment of Employees Boisjoly was one of their leading rocket ex­ tronauts. On January 27th Boisjoly and other perts. The booster rockets were designed to engineers succeeded in persuading Thiokol be reusable like the shuttle itself. After each management to scrub the launch. This de­ launch the rockets would detach from the cision angered NASA rocket booster man­ shuttle and its external fuel tank and para­ ager Larry Mulloy, who applied pressure on chute back to Earth, landing in the ocean, senior managers at Thiokol. Mulloy argued where they would be recovered by special that it was not reasonable for Thiokol to ships. Experts at Thiokol would then exam­ change their judgment about the launch pa­ ine and refurbish the rockets so that they rameters of the rockets they had built for could be used again. On this occasion NASA. A Morton Thiokol management team Boisjoly discovered a problem. The rockets composed in part by Lund; Jerry Mason, from STS 51-C exhibited signs of failed Thiokol's Senior Vice President of the 7,000- O-ring seals and what is known as "hot-gas employee Wasatch Operations in Utah; and blowby," which occurs when ignited fuel leaks Joe Kilminsiter, Vice President of Space from joints in the rocket assembly. The leak­ Booster Programs, voted to override the ing fuel acts as a blowtorch on either the judgment of their engineers and gave NASA shuttle itself or on the giant liquid hydrogen permission to launch. On January 28th, ap­ fuel tank. Alarmed by these findings, Boisjoly proximately 73 seconds after launch, hot- wrote to his boss, R. K. Lund, Vice President gas blowby from failed O-ring seals resulted of Engineering for Morton Thiokol, and re­ in a catastrophic explosion and the loss of ported that "we stand in jeopardy of losing a the Challenger and her crew. The prediction flight."1 A five-member Seal Erosion Task of Boisjoly and the Seal Erosion Task Force Force was assigned to address the problem. team had come true. Boisjoly and the other members of the task President Reagan appointed a commission force concluded that lower launch tempera­ to look into the reasons for the disaster. The tures greatly affected the reliability of the Rogers Commission interviewed nearly every­ O-ring seal. Further evidence of hot-gas blowby one involved in the decision to allow the Chal­ was detected on STS-61-A Challenger in lenger to launch, including Roger Boisjoly. October 1985. This evidence convinced the During their interviews with the commission, Seal Erosion Task Force that it was not safe Boisjoly and fellow engineer Arnie Thompson to launch until the O-ring problem was truthfully reported the sequence of events resolved. leading to the disaster. In so doing they re­ On January 28, 1986, STS-51L Challenger peatedly contradicted the testimony of senior was scheduled for launch with a predicted Morton Thiokol managers including Kilmin- temperature of 18°F at the launch pad. This ister. Because Boisjoly believed senior man­ mission would carry a seven-person crew in­ agement was engaged in a cover-up, he cluding Christa McAuliffe, a New Hampshire provided copies of memos and activity reports school-teacher, who had been selected from to the Rogers Commission that supported his 11,000 applicants to be the first "teacher in and Thompson's version of the events pre­ space." Thousands of U.S. school children ceding the Challenger launch. Boisjoly justi­ would watch the launch live from their fied his actions as follows: "I thought it was classrooms and school auditoriums. That unconscionable that Morton Thiokol and evening, during his State of the Union ad­ NASA wouldn't tell the whole truth so that dress, President Ronald Reagan planned to the program could go forward with proper congratulate McAuliffe and her fellow as­ corrective measures."2 As a result of the Ethical Treatment of Employees 177 testimony of Boisjoly and Thompson, Morton NOTES Thiokol was roundly criticized by Congress, the Roger's Commission, and the press. Se­ 1. "Memo from Roger Boisjoly on O-Ring Explo­ nior Morton Thiokol management chastised sion," Morton Thiokol Inc.July 31,1985. Online Boisjoly and Thompson for airing the com­ Ethics Center for Engineering August 29, 2006, National Academy of Engineering. Available at pany's dirty laundry and for being disloyal http://www.onlineethics.org/CMS/profpractice/ employees. exempindex/RB-intro/Erosion.aspx. When he returned to work at Morton 2. Roger M. Boisjoly, "Post Disaster Treatment" Thiokol Wasatch Operations, Boisjoly found in "Ethical Decisions—Morton Thiokol and that he was ostracized by management and re­ the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster." Online Ethics Center for Engineering 5/15/2006, moved from responsibility for the redesign of National Academy of Engineering, p. 1. Avail­ the rocket booster. He could not understand able at www.onlineethics.org/CMS/profpractice/ why his expertise was not being utilized in the ppessays/thiokolshuttle.aspx. redesign effort. Eventually he discovered that he had been intentionally isolated from NASA Questions on the orders of Edward Garrison, Morton Thiokol's President of Aerospace Operations. 1. Do you regard Boisjoly as a disloyal em­ Boisjoly felt that his work environment had ployee or a heroic whistle-blower? Why? become hostile toward him. Eventually, the 2. Did Morton Thiokol treat Boisjoly fairly? psychological strain became too great, and he Why, or why not? Explain. took sick leave and eventually resigned from 3. What, if anything, ought Morton Thiokol Morton Thiokol. managers have done differently? Explain. CASE 6. The Reluctant Security Guard David Tuff, 24, is a security guard who has the security guard compulsory examination, been working for the past 17 months for the and was issued a license. Tuff has consistently Blue Mountain Company in Minneapolis, carried out his guard duties conscientiously. Minnesota. Blue Mountain manages and Previously a four-year military policeman in the operates retail shopping malls in several mid- U.S. Marine Corps, his commanding officer western states. The company has a security had praised both his service and his integrity. services division that trains and supplies mall Part of his job training at Blue Mountain security guards, including those for the required that Tuff learn the procedures found Village Square Mall where Tuff has been em­ in the Security Officer's Manual, which uses mil­ ployed.
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