In more bad news for beleaguered Boeing, the Federal Aviation Administration has launched another investigation into the aircraft manufacturer for what the regulator says may have been a "falsification" of records pertaining to its 787 Dreamliner line of planes.
First reported by The Wall Street Journal, the FAA released a statement confirming that the agency "has opened an investigation into Boeing after the company voluntarily informed us in April that it may not have completed required inspections to confirm adequate bonding and grounding where the wings join the fuselage on certain 787 Dreamliner airplanes."
Well, the wings staying on a plane as it cruises along at hundreds of miles per hour several miles in the sky does seem important...
The FAA said it is "investigating whether Boeing completed the inspections and whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records. At the same time, Boeing is reinspecting all 787 airplanes still within the production system and must also create a plan to address the in-service fleet," the FAA's statement added. "As the investigation continues, the FAA will take any necessary action — as always — to ensure the safety of the flying public."
As the WSJ exclusive reminded, the FAA has been keeping a close eye on Boeing following the January 5 incident aboard an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX aircraft that saw a door plug blow out of the aircraft after taking off. The outlet also quoted from an internal memo from Scott Stocker, the head of the 787 program at Boeing, in the wake of the revelation that required inspections had not been completed but checked off by employees as if they had been.
The memo was sent to "celebrate" the employee who spoke up about the failure to perform inspections:
The teammate saw what appeared to be an irregularity in a required conformance test in wing body join. He raised it with his manager, who brought it to the attention of executive leadership. I wanted to personally thank and commend that teammate for doing the right thing. It's critical that every one of us speak up when we see something that may not look right, or that needs attention.
After receiving the report, we quickly reviewed the matter and learned that several people had been violating Company policies by not performing a required test, but recording the work as having been completed. As you all know, we have zero tolerance for not following processes designed to ensure quality and safety. We promptly informed our regulator about what we learned and are taking swift and serious corrective action with multiple teammates.
Fortunately, our engineering team has assessed that this misconduct did not create an immediate safety of flight issue. But it will impact our customers and factory teammates, because the test now needs to be conducted out of sequence on airplanes in the build process...
Boeing shared a memo from 787 VP & GM Scott Stoker (dated April 29) to employees about the falsification of a wing-to-body join test during final assembly. FAA now investigating. (Emphasis Boeing's.) pic.twitter.com/gYn1GXRLgH
— Jon Ostrower (@jonostrower) May 6, 2024
Boeing, already under stricter-than-usual oversight from the FAA, clearly has some more issues to work through when it comes to quality assurance and employee adherence to company policies on the assembly line.
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