Boeing and Airbus stressed there were no safety concerns after revealing on Friday that some titanium parts used in their planes had false documentation, sparking a federal investigation.
Boeing did not say how many or which models of planes are affected by the titanium parts, but stressed it does not believe the findings will affect safety.
“Our analysis indicates that aircraft in operation can continue to fly safely,” Boeing said.
Airbus said the part was installed on an A220, a smaller passenger jet used on short-haul routes, and that the plane was still fit to fly.
“Numerous tests have been carried out on parts coming from the same supplier,” Airbus, which has its headquarters and assembly plant in France, said in a statement, “and the results show that the airworthiness of the A220 remains unaffected.”
The Federal Aviation Administration said it was opening an investigation into how the parts without proper documentation were installed on planes, and Boeing said it would remove the parts from planes that had not yet been delivered to airline customers.
The FAA is “investigating the scope and impact of this issue,” the Associated Press reported. The FAA said Boeing notified the unnamed vendor of the problem, and that “the vendor may have falsified or provided inaccurate records.”
Boeing’s main manufacturing subsidiary, Spirit AeroSystems, said the titanium parts had false documentation attached to them.
“This was an issue regarding titanium that entered our supply system through falsified documentation,” Spirit spokesman Joe Buccino told The Associated Press. “Once this was identified, all suspect parts were quarantined and removed from Spirit production.”
Buccino said more than 1,000 tests have been conducted on the material “to ensure its continued airworthiness.”
investigation, First reported by The New York TimesIt began when a parts supplier discovered corrosion damage in titanium parts, which are chosen for the metal’s strength and heat resistance and are very common in aerospace manufacturing.
Boeing and Spirit are already under scrutiny over how they build the 737 Max jets, after an FAA investigation after a plane’s door blew off in January found serious deficiencies in the company’s manufacturing safety procedures.
“Boeing has a problem with their safety culture. Their priorities are focused on production, not safety and quality,” FAA Administrator Michael 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 Associated Press contributed.
