Boeing is implementing a further set of checks on its 737 Max 9 production lines and opening factories to airline scrutiny as it attempts to demonstrate the safety of its troubled plane.
The US manufacturer said it would also bring in independent assessors, beyond normal regulation, and send a team to the plant of its main supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, to check its processes as well.
Spirit manufactured the plug door that blew out of a new Boeing 737 Max 9 during an Alaska Airlines flight this month, forcing an emergency landing with a gaping hole in the plane’s fuselage.
The US Federal Aviation Administration has since grounded that particular 737 Max variant pending inspections, and announced a full audit and investigation of Boeing’s production processes.
Boeing executives have said they take responsibility and would address the problem with full transparency, after having been previously condemned for initially dismissing separate concerns about the 737 Max 8 following a fatal crash in 2018.
Stan Deal, the president of company’s commercial aeroplanes division, said in a letter to employees on Monday that it was deploying staff to Spirit’s plant in Wichita, Kansas, to check and approve work, specifically including work on the plug doors, before fuselages were shipped to Boeing’s plant in Washington state.
Both Boeing and Spirit’s 737 production facilities will be opened for airlines to carry out inspections. Deal said Boeing would also hold sessions for employees on quality management, as well as bringing in a third party to conduct an independent assessment of its processes.
He wrote: “Everything we do must conform to the requirements in our QMS [quality management system]. Anything less is unacceptable. It is through this standard that we must operate to provide our customers and their passengers complete confidence in Boeing airplanes.”
Accident investigators from the US are yet to report on the exact reasons for the incident on 5 January, which ended without casualties but could have proved disastrous. While Boeing seeks to limit reputational damage, US authorities have stepped up oversight of the aerospace manufacturer, with the FAA announcing on Friday it would significantly increase checks and reporting its belief that there were “other manufacturing problems” at the company.
Loose bolts have been found by airlines in subsequent checks of 737 Max 9s and other defects were reported in the week before the Alaska Airlines incident.
Software in the 737 Max 8 caused two of the deadliest plane crashes in recent history when the model was first launched, killing 346 people in 2018 and 2019.
