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Boeing will face more scrutiny from its US regulator, including “more boots on the ground” to monitor the beleaguered plane maker and a review of potential conflicts of interest associated with its inspections of its own jets.
The Federal Aviation Administration has 20 inspectors at Boeing and six at key supplier Spirit AeroSystems. They are auditing the companies’ production and quality control practices after a mid-air blowout of part of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 plane last month. While the audit has not thus far found anything requiring immediate action, the agency is shifting to an oversight approach involving more direct surveillance rather than just signing off on paperwork.
“Going forward, we will have more boots on the ground closely scrutinising and monitoring production and manufacturing activities” at Boeing, FAA administrator Mike Whitaker told a congressional hearing on Tuesday. The FAA would need more inspectors for aircraft certification, he said, and the regulator was likely to keep some in place at Boeing and Spirit facilities after the audit.
The FAA was “specifically” looking at the potential conflicts of interest that came with its long-standing delegation of some inspection and certification steps to Boeing. The agency had asked an outside firm “to give us options on delegation and where we might bring in a third party, for example, in quality control, or quality assurance, to make sure you have a neutral set of eyes”.
Whitaker said “The current system is not working because it’s not delivering safe aircraft”. Boeing’s culture and incentives needed to be looked at, he said, because “if you don’t have that safety culture, I think it’s hard to make safe aeroplanes”.
The testimony came hours before the National Transportation Safety Board was expected to release its preliminary report on the Alaska incident.
Boeing has been accused by industry insiders and observers of prioritising its investors over safety considerations. “Regardless of their other motives, they’re not going to be able to build more aeroplanes until they meet those standards,” Whitaker said. The FAA has ordered Boeing not to expand its 737 Max production until it resolves its quality control issues.
The FAA chief also said he would meet chief executives of US airlines on Wednesday to discuss how to “share information more transparently and improve our safety management systems”.
Whitaker also encouraged Boeing employees to report safety concerns via an FAA hotline. “We will consider the full extent of our enforcement authority to ensure Boeing is held accountable for any non-compliance,” he added.
Also on Tuesday Spirit AeroSystems, which builds the fuselages for Boeing’s 737 Max, said it would withhold its financial guidance for the coming year until there was “further clarity” on when the plane maker would be able to increase the rate at which it builds the aircraft.
Pat Shanahan, interim chief executive, said Spirit was taking a “hard look” at its processes following the Alaska incident. The company has increased its inspections and its “next wave of improvement” actions will include deploying more automation in building the fuselages, he said.
A significant portion of the fuselage work was done manually, Shanahan told analysts. The answer for increasing the production quality of the 737 is “less manual [work], less interpretation, more inspections,” he said.
Spirit “was behaving as if we were part of Boeing” he added. “The co-ordination and integration is really taking place now.”
The company was also changing its executives’ pay “significantly” to increase how much of it is tied to quality metrics, Shanahan disclosed.
