Airplane Battery Whistleblower Visits CBS THIS MORNING: SATURDAY Today

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Michael Leon, a former engineering technician with a Boeing battery manufacturer, tells CBS News Transportation Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson that management ignored his concerns about problems with batteries used on Boeing's 787 Dreamliner. The report will be broadcast today, Feb. 16 on CBS THIS MORNING: SATURDAY (check local listings) on the CBS Television Network.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the Boeing 787 Dreamliner fleet after a battery caught fire aboard a Boeing 787 Dreamliner operated by Japan Airlines while it was parked at a Boston airport last month.

Attkisson speaks with Leon, who was a senior engineering technician at Securaplane Technologies, the company that manufactures the start-power unit and the battery charger unit used on the 787 Dreamliner. Leon says he told his managers in October 2006 that the battery's safety monitor was not working.

"They basically ignored me and told me to keep pushing it or we were going to lose the contract," Leon tells Attkisson.

Two weeks later, the battery exploded in the lab. The Federal Aviation Administration dismissed Leon's safety concerns, but a former NTSB member, John Goglia, tells Attkisson that after the recent grounding of the 787 Dreamliner for battery issues, Leon's story deserves another look.

"This man, according to the documents, has an ocean of knowledge around this system and these batteries, and to leave that unmined at this point in time in crazy," Goglia tells Attkisson.

Leon was eventually fired; however, both Securaplane and a federal labor judge have said Leon was not let go for his whistleblowing but for repeated misconduct.

Anthony Mason and Rebecca Jarvis are the co-hosts of CBS THIS MORNING: SATURDAY. Michael Rosen is the Executive Producer of CBS THIS MORNING: SATURDAY.