FAA chief calls out ‘issues around safety culture’ at Boeing

Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Michael Whitaker said after a recent visit to Boeing facilities that he found problems with the company’s safety culture, he expects the airline giant to get its act together. Stated.

“There’s a problem with Boeing’s safety culture. Their priorities are focused on production, not safety or quality,” he told NBC News’ Lester Holt on Tuesday. “So what we’re really focused on right now is shifting the focus from production to safety and quality.”

Whittaker spoke with Holt more than two months after the door panel of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 was blown off shortly after takeoff. It has put aircraft manufacturer Boeing under the microscope.

Boeing has been criticized following a series of plane crashes since the plane made an emergency landing in Portland, Oregon. In early March, a United Airlines Boeing plane lost a tire after takeoff, adding another incident to the airline’s list of safety questions.

Whittaker said a concern at Boeing was that a “thorough safety briefing” before going into production was not part of the process. He added that because the focus was on production, there weren’t many conversations focused on “quality, assurance and safety.”

“There is nothing wrong with production, but we have to protect safety,” he said.

After launching its own investigation into recent incidents, the FAA blamed Boeing’s quality control problems in a statement earlier this month. The agency said its six-week audit of Boeing found “multiple instances of the company’s alleged failure to comply with manufacturing quality control requirements.”

Holt read a recent statement from Boeing that said the company is focused on “demonstrating change and building trust one aircraft at a time.”

The “Nightly News” host asked Whitaker if the growing criticism of Boeing might be “too big to fail.”

“Economics is not part of my portfolio, but I think economics is woefully inadequate to make a good airplane. They have all the resources they need,” Whittaker replied. “There’s no reason they can’t make a good airplane. That’s our focus right now.”