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Boeing Insists It Is Making Progress On Safety and Program Delays

As the 737 Max safety saga continues, Boeing's Farnborough show presence is understated

 

Boeing's 737 Max assembly line in Renton has come under intense scrutiny following safety concerns most recently driven by the January incident involving a door plug that separated from an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 while in flight. 

By Hanneke Weitering • Science & Technology Editor

July 17, 2024

Boeing has returned to the Farnborough International Airshow with a cross-section mockup of its new 777X cabin, but the aerospace giant’s commercial airliners are notably absent from the static and flying displays this year.

At the previous Farnborough show in 2022, Boeing debuted its 737 Max 10—the largest member of the 737 Max family—in the flying demonstrations, along with a flight test example of the 777-9, the larger of the two planned 777X variants. 

This year, however, Boeing opted not to spend time and resources orchestrating overseas flight demonstrations with its latest airliner models. Rather, the Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA) division has turned its attention to a comprehensive safety and quality action plan the FAA ordered the company to devise following several high-profile accidents with its 737 Max family of airliners. 

After the January 5 incident in which a mid-exit door plug blew out of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9, causing rapid depressurization shortly after takeoff from Portland, Oregon, the FAA launched an investigation into reports of systemic quality-control deficiencies in Boeing’s 737 Max production lines. In February the FAA ordered Boeing to devise an action plan to systematically address the issues, incorporating findings from the agency’s production-line audit and an expert review panel report.

Boeing has since begun to overhaul its quality-control processes, not only at the 737 production line in Renton, Washington, but in all of its manufacturing facilities. The plan calls for simplifying processes, investing in more robust training and mentoring programs, and increasing oversight of its suppliers. The company also has asked for feedback from employees and encouraged them to openly report safety and quality concerns. 

At the Renton factory, the production line now shuts down for an hour every week to allow employees to discuss safety concerns and needs with their supervisors. The meetings allow employees to report any issue ranging from noncompliant manufacturing work to basic needs such as better lighting, Katie Ringgold, v-p and general manager for Boeing’s 737 program and Renton site leader, told reporters last month during a tour of the facility. 

To better organize the production line, Boeing implemented a new digitized system that tracks parts and tools while automatically documenting any unfinished work at the end of a shift. The company stores the items on a so-called “work in progress” (WIP) rack monitored by an attendant, and each airplane travels down the assembly line with its own designated WIP rack. 

The new WIP rack ensures that no parts removed from the aircraft get left behind when it moves down the assembly line—a simple mistake that may have contributed to the door plug fallout.  

‘Door Plug’ Saga Continues

The door plug incident in January marked the latest in a series of problems with 737 Max airliners involving Boeing and its supplier Spirit Aerosystems which assembles the model's fuselages in Wichita, Kansas, before shipping them to Boeing’s Renton factory. The supplier, which Boeing expects to acquire next year, has come under fire in recent years over manufacturing defects and potentially non-compliant parts it supplied to Boeing. 

Following a “comprehensive and methodical” 20-month review of Boeing’s processes in the aftermath of the twin crashes of 737 Max jets in 2018 and 2019, the FAA cleared the Max to fly again in November 2020. At the time, Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun promised the company had addressed the resulting safety concerns. “The lessons we have learned as a result have reshaped our company and further focused our attention on our core values of safety, quality, and integrity,” he insisted.

Nearly five years later, Boeing echoed those sentiments in response to the door plug fiasco. This time, the situation differs in that the focus has shifted from engineering to manufacturing, argued BCA senior vice president of quality Elizabeth Lund. “When this accident came along, it gave us a chance to look at a different area…This was really the manufacturing side of the house, not the engineering side of the house,” Lund told reporters during a pre-Farnborough media briefing on June 25.

Last September, while the aircraft equipped with the suspect door plug underwent production at the Renton factory, Spirit AeroSystems employees had to replace some faulty rivets on the fuselage and Boeing mechanics temporarily removed the door plug to grant access to those rivets. Investigators found that when they subsequently mounted the plug, they failed to install four retaining pins that held it in place. 

In a perplexing turn of events, Lund said in the briefing that the mechanics who closed the door plug following the repair are not to blame for the missing pins. Rather, Boeing believes that someone failed to file the necessary paperwork when workers opened the plug in the first place.  

“We believe there was a noncompliance to our processes at that point by having the plug open without the correct documentation and paperwork,” Lund said. “There was documentation and paperwork on the actual rivets. Those got removed and replaced. That was stamped off. That was appropriate.”

After mechanics addressed the rivet problem, the airplane was ready to roll outside. “We have a team that we call the move crew,” said Lund. “Before an airplane rolls out of the factory on line-move night, they come in and they just button the airplane up for the weather. We know the move crew closed the plug. They did not reinstall the retaining pins. That is not their job. Their job is to just close it and they count on existing paperwork.

“The paperwork goes with the airplane,” she continued. “In this case, because we believe the paperwork was never created, there was no open paperwork that traveled with the airplane...The fact that one employee could not fill out one piece of paperwork in this condition and could result in an accident was shocking to all of us.”

NTSB Slams Boeing

Lund’s comments prompted a strong rebuke last month from the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), which leads the investigation into the door plug incident. As a participant in the probe, Boeing may not release any investigative information without the NTSB’s express approval, Tim LeBaron, director of the NTSB's Office of Aviation Safety, explained in a letter to Boeing president and CEO Dave Calhoun.

LeBaron alleged that Boeing blatantly violated the terms of its party agreement with the NTSB. “[The company] released non-public investigative information and made unsubstantiated speculations about possible causes of the January 5 door-plug blowout, which is directly at issue in the ongoing investigation,” said LeBaron. Some of the information Lund discussed in the June 25 briefing “was either inaccurate or unknown to the NTSB,” he added. 

The rebuke marked the second time in one month that the NTSB reprimanded Boeing for publicly discussing an active investigation without permission. On June 18, Boeing chief engineer Howard McKenzie testified in a U.S. Senate hearing that a “Dutch roll” incident in May involving a Southwest Airlines 737 Max 8 had “nothing to do with design or manufacturing.” LeBaron countered that notion. “The NTSB has not made any such determination, and our investigators have not yet ruled out design or manufacturing issues as contributing to this event,” he said.

In response to Boeing’s mishandling of the door plug investigation, the NTSB rescinded the company’s access to “investigative information the NTSB produces as it develops the factual record of the accident,” LeBaron said. 

Furthermore, he noted, the NTSB intends to subpoena company witnesses, including Lund, to appear at an investigative hearing in Washington, D.C. in August, adding that the NTSB had notified the Department of Justice about Boeing’s unauthorized release of investigative information. 

Certification Programs Face Ongoing Delays

While Boeing addresses claims of safety deficiencies and possible criminal charges, the company continues to struggle with delays in the certification programs for the 737 Max 7 and Max 10 models, as well as the 777X. According to Boeing, increased regulatory scrutiny since the Max crashes has contributed to ongoing certification delays. 

BCA decided not to bring its new airliners to the Farnborough Airshow this year to concentrate on minimizing the program delays. The U.S. aerospace giant also opted to leave its latest commercial jets behind for the Singapore Airshow in February, instead bringing the 777X cross-section to showcase in the exhibit hall.  

Originally scheduled for certification in 2020, the 777X likely won’t enter service until 2026. 

The 777-9 test fleet has accumulated more than 3,500 flight hours during 1,200 flight tests as of June 2024, according to Ted Grady, chief test pilot for the 777X program. Grady said the flight test team has “gone through almost all of the Boeing testing we’ll do before we get into certification [testing].” 

Boeing has suffered a series of setbacks in certifying the Max 7 and Max 10 derivatives since the Max 8 and 9 entered service in 2017. Boeing continues to work on a fix for a faulty anti-icing system and now expects the Max 7 and 10 models to gain certification in the latter half of 2026.