4 bolts used to safe the panel that in the end blew off an Alaska Airways airplane throughout a flight final month have been eliminated — and seem to not have been changed — at Boeing’s manufacturing facility in Renton, Wash., in keeping with a preliminary report launched Tuesday by the Nationwide Transportation Security Board.
The panel, often known as a door plug, was opened to restore broken rivets on the airplane’s physique, often known as the fuselage. The report didn’t say who eliminated the bolts conserving the door plug in place. However the security board mentioned it appeared that not all of the bolts have been put again as soon as the door was reinstalled on the airplane after the rivets had been repaired.
As proof, the N.T.S.B. offered {a photograph} of the door plug after it was reinstalled however earlier than the airplane’s inside was restored. Within the picture, three of the 4 bolts look like lacking. The placement of the fourth bolt is roofed with insulation.
The report mentioned the picture had been connected to “a textual content message between Boeing staff members on September 19, 2023.” The Boeing workers “have been discussing inside restoration after the rivet rework was accomplished throughout second shift operations that day,” the report mentioned.
The security board mentioned there was no proof that the plug was opened once more after it left Boeing’s manufacturing facility. The airplane was delivered to Alaska Airways on the finish of October.
The report intensifies the scrutiny on Boeing, which has been scrambling for weeks to include the fallout from the incident, and it raises recent questions on whether or not the corporate did sufficient to enhance security after two deadly crashes of 737 Max 8 planes in 2018 and 2019. It additionally solutions important questions on why the door plug indifferent shortly after Alaska Airways Flight 1282 took off from Portland Worldwide Airport in Oregon.
Nearly instantly, the Alaska Airways incident prompted the Federal Aviation Administration to floor some 737 Max 9 jets, snarling flight schedules for days at Alaska and United Airways, the 2 U.S. carriers that fly the mannequin.
The F.A.A. has additionally indefinitely restricted Boeing’s formidable plans to extend manufacturing of all Max jets, miring the corporate in uncertainty. The corporate had deliberate to churn out 42 jets a month this yr and 50 a month subsequent yr, however it can as a substitute maintain regular at 38, presumably for a lot of months. Boeing executives declined final week to offer a monetary forecast for the yr, citing the incident and a must give attention to security.
Livid airline executives have taken the uncommon step of criticizing Boeing publicly and expressing doubt that it is going to be in a position to ship the airplanes that they had ordered on time.
The incident and its ripple results have plunged Boeing, one of many world’s two largest airplane producers, into a well-known place: attempting to navigate by means of a disaster with unknown monetary and reputational prices. Simply 5 years in the past, after the 2 lethal Max 8 crashes that killed practically 350 folks, the corporate spent billions of {dollars} to make its planes safer and restore its repute.
With the corporate as soon as once more on its heels, it’s racing to reassure prospects, regulators and members of Congress that it’s centered squarely on bettering high quality management. Dave Calhoun, Boeing’s chief govt, visited Spirit AeroSystems, a provider in Wichita, Kan., that makes the our bodies of 737 Max planes. Boeing additionally held an occasion at which workers on the manufacturing facility in Renton, the place Max planes are constructed, halted work for a day to attend classes about high quality. And it has vowed to reward workers “for talking as much as sluggish issues down if that’s what’s wanted.”
However even because it tries to resolve its troubles, Boeing mentioned on Sunday {that a} provider final week had discovered a brand new drawback with fuselages on dozens of unfinished 737 Max planes. The provider discovered that “two holes could not have been drilled precisely to our necessities.”
Although he didn’t identify the provider, a spokesman for Spirit mentioned {that a} member of its staff had recognized a problem inside the previous week that didn’t conform to engineering requirements. Boeing mentioned that the issue would drive Boeing to transform about 50 planes, delaying their supply.
On a name with analysts Tuesday, the chief govt of Spirit AeroSystems, Patrick Shanahan, mentioned that it was rising the variety of inspections it carried out, together with those executed by Boeing.
Additionally on Tuesday, Mike Whitaker, the F.A.A.’s prime official, instructed a Home panel that the company would step up its on-the-ground presence monitoring Boeing’s plane manufacturing.
“Going ahead, we can have extra boots on the bottom carefully scrutinizing and monitoring manufacturing and manufacturing actions,” Mr. Whitaker instructed the Home Transportation and Infrastructure Committee’s aviation subcommittee.
Along with limiting Boeing’s manufacturing enhance, the company has opened an investigation into the airplane maker’s compliance with security requirements. It additionally started an audit trying on the firm’s manufacturing of the Max, which Mr. Whitaker mentioned would take six weeks.
He mentioned the company had deployed about two dozen inspectors at Boeing and one other half-dozen at Spirit.
Santul Nerkar contributed reporting.
