Allison Lampert
SEATTLE (Reuters) – Boeing (NYSE:) plans to brief senior European regulatory officials on changes to the way it makes planes, a senior company executive said, after a mid-air panel explosion in January sparked a safety crisis.
Boeing has been under pressure from factory controls since Jan. 5, when a door plug tore off an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 in an incident blamed on missing bolts.
Elizabeth Lund, Boeing’s senior vice president of quality, said on Tuesday that the aircraft maker will have a high-level briefing from the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) with the participation of the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
The company will do the same with other regulators.
“We’ll make sure they’re fully aware of all the steps we’re taking as we go through this,” Lund told reporters during a visit to the company’s 737 plant in Renton, Washington, a suburb of Seattle.
EASA’s acting head said in March the agency would suspend indirect approval of Boeing aircraft if warranted, but added he was confident the planemaker was addressing its latest safety crisis.
Under the transatlantic agreement, the FAA and EASA regulate the factories of their respective aircraft makers, Boeing and Airbus, and recognize each other’s safety approvals. This relationship was tested after two fatal MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019, respectively.
In February, the FAA directed Boeing to develop a plan to address “systemic quality control issues.”
Boeing said it increased investments in training, simplified work instructions and stepped up oversight of suppliers after an Alaska Airlines MAX 9 plane reached the end of the factory line with rivets that needed to be fixed.
Boeing also unveiled specific production milestones its planes will need to reach in order to move on to the next assembly position. The planemaker will take into account mechanics’ concerns if they believe the plane should be grounded, said Jennifer Boland Masterson, senior director of production for the 737 program.
Lund said the Alaska Airlines door plug was opened without paperwork to fix the rivets, and missing bolts were not replaced. The crew that came and closed the plug was not responsible for reinstalling the bolts, she said.
The crash, which led to the emergency landing, is being investigated by the National Transportation Safety Board.
On Thursday morning, the NTSB said it was sanctioning Boeing for disclosing classified details of its ongoing investigation at a media briefing where Lund’s comments were made and referred the aircraft maker’s conduct to the Justice Department.
During the briefing, Lund said Boeing has “confidence that no other aircraft has been delivered this way, based on the full fleet review we have done,” referring to the Alaska Airlines plane.
She said Boeing is “ready” to achieve AS9100 certification, an internationally recognized aerospace quality standard that the aircraft maker requires of its suppliers. Boeing already meets the standard and has passed the same level of inspection as if it were certified, Lund said.