Shuttle Booster Builder Sued for $1 Billion

Rocket engineer Roger Boisjoly, whose warnings to delay the ill-fated launch of the space shuttle Challenger were ignored by his superiors and space agency officials, filed a $1-billion defamation and antitrust suit against his employer Wednesday, on the first anniversary of the disaster.

The suit, filed in federal court here, accuses Chicago-based rocket booster manufacturer Morton Thiokol Inc. of attempting to impugn Boisjoly’s professional reputation as punishment “for testifying truthfully” before congressional committees and the presidential commission that investigated the Jan. 28, 1986, shuttle accident.

‘Malcontented Employee’

Complaining that Morton Thiokol executives portrayed him as a “disgruntled or malcontented employee whose views should be discounted and whose professional expertise should be doubted,” Boisjoly says in his suit that his job was threatened and he was prevented at times from talking with NASA investigators.

It was Boisjoly, 48, and four of his colleagues who first told the nation that the rocket engineers had unanimously opposed Challenger’s launch the night before out of fear that cold weather jeopardized the integrity of rubbery O-ring rocket seals. NASA officials dismissed that concern in sometimes angry testimony before the presidential panel.

Frigid Conditions

Investigators subsequently determined, however, that the crash was, indeed, caused by faulty seals compromised by frigid conditions. Meanwhile, friction between the engineers and officials at NASA and Thiokol prompted members of Congress to warn Thiokol executives not to retaliate against the engineers.

“I felt like we were being pushed out on a plank,” Boisjoly said in a recent interview. “NASA was trying to discredit us. The company was treating us like black sheep. It got to be very personal, very uncomfortable.”

NASA Accused

In his suit, Boisjoly also accuses the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of conspiring to give false testimony to mislead investigators. Robert N. Levin, Boisjoly’s attorney, told the Associated Press that he plans to file a similar suit against the space agency this week.

Levin said the suit against Morton Thiokol seeks $1 billion in punitive damages and another $1 million in compensatory damages. The suit alleges that since the 1970s NASA and Thiokol have concealed from the public and from company stockholders information about seal deficiencies in the Thiokol-made solid rocket boosters that Boisjoly says made the shuttle “grossly unsafe to fly” under the extremely cold conditions that existed at Cape Canaveral a year ago.

Boisjoly, who last Saturday was granted a long-term medical leave from his engineering job, claims that he has been disabled by “post-traumatic stress disorder and depression caused directly by the disaster” and “the intentional wrong-doings of NASA and Thiokol.”

Gilbert Moore, a spokesman for Morton Thiokol’s rocket booster operation in Utah said, “We’ve not seen the complaint and can’t comment on it yet.” A NASA spokesman also declined comment on the suit.