The Federal Aviation Administration has required Boeing to develop a “comprehensive plan of action to address systemic quality control issues” within 90 days.
The FAA’s crackdown on the aircraft manufacturer comes nearly two months after a Boeing Co. 737 Max 9 was involved in a mid-air door explosion on an Alaska Airlines flight last month. No one was sitting there.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Justice is still investigating the case and determining whether it falls under the government’s 2021 deferred prosecution agreement with the company, according to Bloomberg.
If prosecutors determine that the door plug explosion constituted a breach of contract, Boeing could face criminal charges. bloomberg The report cited a person familiar with the matter.
FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker has demanded that “Boeing must commit to real, fundamental improvements” by May 28, and that the FAA has “mutually understood milestones and expectations.” And we will hold them accountable every step of the way,” he added.
The FAA expects Boeing to “mature its safety management system (SMS) program.” claimed When introduced in 2019, the company said it would “ensure the safety, quality and compliance of our products” and that the revamped SMS program “integrated with our quality management system to ensure the same level of rigor for our suppliers.” “We will ensure that surveillance is applied.” ”
“Boeing needs to take a fresh look at every aspect of its quality control processes and ensure that safety is the company’s guiding principle,” Whitaker added. update Shared on Wednesday.
In response to the FAA’s statement, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said: Transparency prevailed in all of these discussions,” a Boeing spokesperson told the Post.
“Transparency was threaded through all of these discussions. Boeing plans to develop a comprehensive action plan with measurable criteria that demonstrates the significant changes required by Secretary Whitaker and the FAA.” Our Boeing leadership team is fully committed to meeting this challenge,” Calhoun added in previously reported comments. Wall Street Journal.
The FAA has grounded Boeing’s Max 9 jets, most of which are operated by Alaska Airlines and United Airlines in the US, following the “terrifying” plane explosion on January 5, and has put them through a number of inspection processes. A series of accidents during the manufacturing process have been revealed. process.
Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems told Boeing earlier this month that a number of planes had holes that were accidentally drilled, requiring additional work and expected short-term aircraft delays.
Photo evidence from last month’s now-infamous Alaska Airlines flight shows a missing door plug key bolt that was damaged during manufacturing, according to an independent National Transportation Safety Board report. It was removed to fix the rivets in place. .
An FAA committee this week criticized Boeing’s “lack of awareness of safety-related metrics at all levels of the organization.”
The panel of experts, which has been reviewing Boeing’s safety management processes since last year, also noted that the implementation of “proactive safety culture components was inadequate and confusing.”
The group said the incident on the Alaska Airlines flight in question “only amplified the panel’s concerns that safety-related messages and actions are not being communicated to the entire Boeing population,” and the report said: “There was a gap,” he said. “Boeing’s Safety Journey” will be released in 2023.
So far, Boeing has shaken up the management team overseeing the 737 Max program.
Last week, Boeing announced that Ed Clark, who headed Boeing’s problems division, which also oversees production of the struggling Max 9 model, would retire immediately, ending his 15-year tenure at the company. .
Clark had been promoted to take over the Max program in 2021, based at Boeing’s factory in Renton, Washington. At the time, the company was accelerating production following two deadly 737 Max 9 crashes in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in March 2019. A total of 346 people.
Like the January crash, the two fatal crashes led to a global grounding of the 737 Max and sparked a storm of questions about Boeing’s safety procedures.
