Boeing blames missing documents for Alaska Air incident, prompting NTSB reprimand | CNN Business

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CNN
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Missing documents on the 737 Max that lost a door plug on an Alaska Airlines flight in January don’t just make it difficult to find who made the most tragic mistake. Paperwork could be the cause of the problem, Boeing revealed this week.

It was already well known that there was no documentation indicating who was working on the door stopper. What was revealed this week during a briefing for reporters at the Boeing 737 Max factory in Renton, Washington, is that a lack of paperwork is the reason for the four bolts needed to hold the door plug in place were never installed before the plane left the factory in October. The workers who needed to reinstall the bolts were never given a work order telling them the work needed to be done.

Without the bolts, the door jam incident was almost inevitable. Fortunately, it was not fatal.

This is a sign of work quality problems on Boeing’s assembly lines. These problems have become the subject of multiple federal investigations and whistleblower revelations, and are causing delays in aircraft deliveries that are causing headaches for airlines and passengers around the world.

But Boeing risks getting into even more trouble with regulators by disclosing the details at this stage. The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) on Thursday reprimanded Boeing for disclosing “non-public investigative information” to the media. He said in a statement that the company had “blatantly violated” the agency’s rules.

“At a news conference Tuesday on quality improvement…a Boeing executive provided investigative information and analysis of previously released factual information. Both actions are prohibited,” the NTSB said.

Boeing would no longer have access to information generated by the NTSB during its investigation, the agency said, adding that it was referring Boeing’s conduct to the Justice Department.

“As a party to numerous NTSB investigations over the past several decades, few entities know the rules better than Boeing,” the NTSB said.

Boeing did not immediately respond to CNN’s request for comment outside of normal business hours.

At Tuesday’s briefing, Boeing said the particular problem with Alaska Air’s door plug was because two different groups of factory employees were responsible for doing the work, one removing and the other reinstalling the door stopper as the plane passed. the assembly line.

The first group of employees removed the door stopper to resolve issues with some rivets made by a supplier, Spirit AeroSystems. But they failed to produce documentation showing that they removed the door stopper, along with the four bolts needed to hold it in place, in order to do this work.

When another group of employees put the cap back in place, Boeing said they didn’t think the plane would actually fly in those conditions.

Instead, they simply blocked the hole with the plug to protect the interior of the fuselage from the elements as the plane moved outward. This group of employees often performs these types of temporary repairs.

“The door team closes the aircraft before moving it outside, but it is not their responsibility to install the pins,” said Elizabeth Lund, senior vice president of quality for the Boeing’s commercial aircraft unit.

These employees probably assumed that there was documentation showing that the plug and bolts had been removed and that this documentation would prompt someone else along the line to install the bolts.

But without the documents, no one on the assembly line knew the door stopper had already been removed or that its bolts were missing, Lund said. Removing a door plug after the arrival of a Spirit AeroSystems aircraft rarely happens, Lund added, so no one knew the door stopper needed attention.

“The (permanent) relocation is done by another team based on the documents showing what work is unfinished,” Lund said. “But there was no paperwork, so no one knew what to expect.”

The plane actually flew for about two months with the door plug in place despite the lack of bolts. But minutes after the Alaska Airlines flight took off from Portland, Oregon, on Jan. 5, the door plug exploded, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the plane. Passengers’ clothes and phones were ripped off and thrown into the night sky. But fortunately, no passengers were seriously injured and the crew was able to land safely.

The missing bolts had been identified in the National Transportation Safety Board’s preliminary findings, but that report did not assess liability for the accident. And a final report isn’t expected for about a year or more. An NTSB spokesperson said the safety agency was continuing its investigation and would not comment on Boeing’s explanation of how the error was made.

The committee issued a preliminary report in February saying it found the bolts missing when it left the Boeing factory, but it did not assess liability. A final report is not expected for a year or more.

Since then, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy has testified about the missing documents during congressional hearings.

Boeing is addressing the problem by reducing the speed at which planes move along assembly lines and ensuring that planes don’t move forward with problems, assuming those problems will be fixed later in the assembly process, Lund said.

“We have slowed down our factories to make sure the situation is under control,” she said.

“I am extremely confident that the measures we have taken” will ensure the safety of every aircraft leaving this factory, she added.