An aerial photo shows Boeing 737 Max airplanes parked on the tarmac on the Boeing Factory in Renton, Washington, on March 21, 2019.
Lindsey Wasson | Reuters
The Federal Aviation Administration is giving Boeing 90 days to give you a plan to enhance quality control, the agency said Wednesday, lower than two months after a door plug blew out of a 737 Max 9 minutes into an Alaska Airlines flight.
Bolts needed to secure the unused door panel on the nearly recent plane seemed to be missing, a preliminary investigation of Flight 1282 found earlier this month. The door plug was removed and reinstalled at Boeing’s Renton, Washington, 737 Max factory.
It was the newest and most serious of a series of production problems on Boeing’s bestselling aircraft.
“Boeing must commit to real and profound improvements,” FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said in a release, a day after he met with Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun and company safety managers. “Making foundational change would require a sustained effort from Boeing’s leadership, and we’re going to hold them accountable every step of the way in which, with mutually understood milestones and expectations.”
Boeing in an announcement said it will prepare a “comprehensive motion plan with measurable criteria” and that its leadership team is “totally committed to meeting this challenge.”
The FAA is in the course of an audit of Boeing’s 737 production lines. The agency last month said it will halt Boeing’s planned ramp-up of 737 Max planes until the regulator is satisfied with the corporate’s quality control systems.
On Monday, an authority panel’s report on Boeing found a “disconnect” between the manufacturer’s senior management and employees on safety culture. The report was required by Congress after two crashes in 2018 and 2019 of Boeing 737 Max planes, which killed everyone on board the flights.
The FAA said Wednesday that it expects Boeing’s plan to incorporate findings from the report and its audit, which it’s scheduled to finish in the subsequent few weeks.
“By virtue of our quality stand-downs, the FAA audit findings and the recent expert review panel report, now we have a transparent picture of what must be done,” Boeing said in its statement.
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