The head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said Thursday that the agency was “too complacent” in regulating plane makers until a door blew off a Boeing plane in January, sparking a weeks-long investigation into the company’s manufacturing safety.
FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker said at a Senate Commerce Committee hearing on Boeing that the agency “should have had better knowledge” of Boeing’s manufacturing processes.
“The FAA’s approach has been too laissez-faire, too focused on paper audits and not enough on inspections,” he said. “We’ve changed that approach in recent months, and those changes are permanent. We’re now moving to a more proactive, comprehensive oversight model, an audit-plus-inspection model, that gives the FAA a better understanding of Boeing’s operations.”
A Boeing 787 MAX operated by Alaska Airlines had a door explode due to a missing bolt, leading to the grounding of all planes of the same model in the U.S. and mandatory inspections. An investigation into Boeing’s processes found a poor safety culture and oversights during manufacturing.
“Boeing has a problem with their safety culture. Their priority is focused on production, not safety and quality,” Whitaker said in March. “So what we’re really focused on now is shifting that focus from production to safety and quality.”
The FAA said its six-week audit of Boeing “found multiple instances in which the companies allegedly failed to comply with manufacturing quality control requirements.”
The investigation sent the company’s stock price plummeting and prompted further scrutiny from Congress: The Justice Department opened a criminal investigation in March, and members of the Senate Commerce Committee have previously promised to step up oversight.
The committee’s ranking member, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), said in March that more oversight was “absolutely” needed.
“This is an ongoing issue. Obviously, the events at Boeing in recent months are of serious concern. The NTSB is engaged in an investigation into the Alaska Airlines accident. That investigation needs to proceed to a conclusion,” he told The Hill.
“The challenges we have seen recently raise real and significant concerns and worries that need to be addressed.”
