Boeing has endured a month of misery. On January 5, a flight from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California, suffered a blowout, with a door panel ripped off mid-flight. Then, airlines informed officials that bolts on the 737 Max 9 aircraft needed tightening during mandatory safety inspections. The Federal Aviation Administration grounded dozens of flights using this model, later upgraded to an indefinite grounding. On January 29, the FAA permitted some models to return to the skies once they’d passed another layer of safety inspection, though that’s not the end of this saga.
An Ex-Boeing manager warned travelers to stay the hell away from flights using this model. The FAA has essentially halted production of all new 737 Max 9 planes. Yet, there have been other public relations fiascos, like a Boeing cargo plane caught making an emergency landing in Miami while spraying flames everywhere. A 757 lost a nose tire before takeoff in Atlanta. And now, the latest 737 issue is that "misdrilled" holes were reported in the fuselage (via WaPo):
NEW: A Boeing supplier notified the company Thursday that it had discovered "non-conformance" with the way some holes were drilled in about 50 undelivered 737 jets, the company said Sunday. https://t.co/2FqQCqDBVn
— ABC News (@ABC) February 5, 2024
The CEO of Boeing said in a letter to staff that a worker at its supplier discovered misdrilled holes in fuselages. https://t.co/unb8BnqaJF
— NBC News (@NBCNews) February 5, 2024
Boeing plans to rework dozens of 737 Max jets after misdrilled holes were discovered on some fuselages, marking the latest production problem for the aircraft.
In a memo to employees, Boeing commercial airplanes chief Stan Deal said the misdrilled holes do not pose any immediate safety issues and will not affect jets in operation. But the company believes it will have to “rework” about 50 undelivered airplanes, Deal said.
“While this issue could delay some near-term 737 deliveries, this is the only course of action given our commitment to deliver perfect airplanes every time,” Deal wrote.
The plane maker was notified of the misdrilled holes by an employee at Spirit AeroSystems, the Wichita-based company that makes the fuselages. That prompted broader inspections at Boeing, according to statements from both companies.
Yet, the 737 storyline has been the devil on the company’s back, which dates to the Max 8 and has been part of numerous aviation disasters. It will certainly be brought up during tomorrow’s hearing with FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker. Then again, the FAA isn’t totally unscathed in this fiasco engulfing Boeing (via NYT):
When a Boeing 737 Max 8 crashed off the coast of Indonesia in 2018, killing all 189 people on board, the Federal Aviation Administration allowed other Max planes to keep flying. Less than five months later, in early 2019, another Max 8 crashed in Ethiopia, killing 157 more people. Even then, days passed before the agency halted the planes from flying.
[…]
The agency did not stop with the grounding. Last month, it said it would bar Boeing from increasing production of the 737 Max line until the company addressed quality control issues, a major blow to the plane maker’s ability to ramp up output as it tries to compete with its main rival, Airbus. The regulator also opened an investigation into Boeing’s compliance with safety standards and announced an audit of the Max 9 production line.
The F.A.A.’s handling of the latest Boeing crisis will come under the spotlight on Tuesday when the agency’s administrator, Mike Whitaker, testifies before a House subcommittee. Already, the door panel mishap has prompted another wave of questions from Congress about how the nation’s air safety regulator exercises its oversight role.
The agency has long relied on plane makers to conduct safety work on the government’s behalf, a practice that came under scrutiny after the Max 8 crashes and is now drawing attention once again. In the case of the incident with the Max 9, one possibility is that Boeing employees improperly reinstalled the door panel, known as a door plug, after it was opened at the plane maker’s factory in Renton, Wash. If a manufacturing lapse is found to have been at fault, the F.A.A. may face criticism over whether it sufficiently monitored Boeing’s production processes.
Regardless of how the problem with the jet came to be, the F.A.A.’s fast and aggressive response once the door plug blew out in midair was unusual for the agency. Considered the most influential aviation regulator in the world, it has been called the “tombstone” agency over the years for not taking action to address potential safety issues until people had died.
Just avoid the 737 Max 9.
