By Lori Aratani and Ian Duncan / The Washington Post
Newly released transcripts of interviews with Boeing employees describe a chaotic push to finish building the 737 Max that suffered a midair blowout in January.
Months after the incident, the National Transportation Safety Board has not fully untangled key moments in the plane’s journey through the factory outside Seattle last September, saying it has been unable to determine who opened or reclosed the panel that flew off the airliner. But the transcripts released Tuesday show that Boeing had reminded employees about the need to document removals in July 2023, saying in red underlined type that removing or loosening parts had to be recorded.
According to the transcripts released Tuesday, some workers described pressure from their bosses to move aircraft through the production line. A manager responsible for the final manufacturing stages said a problem with the panel led to him receiving “a lot of phone calls, a lot of emails.”
The manager said he wanted to see the manufacturing process emphasize caution over speed.
“I want to see everybody’s mentality is to slow down a little bit and get things done correctly instead of pushing and just need to be done,” the manager said. “And that needs to be changed from the executive levels, higher up levels.”
But some workers described recurring problems that slowed them down and resulted in work being done out of the normal order, causing pressure to mount.
“Somewhere, ’22 or ’23, we were replacing doors like we were replacing our underwear: forward doors, cargo doors, E/E bay doors,” one team leader told investigators. “The planes come in jacked up every day. Every day.”
Tuesday marked the first of two days of hearings this week the NTSB is holding to gather more information about an accident that has shaken the public’s confidence in commercial air travel and led to renewed scrutiny of the storied company’s operations.
Among those appearing at the hearing are Boeing leaders including Elizabeth Lund, the senior executive overseeing the quality in the company’s commercial airplane division, and Terry George, a top executive with Spirit AeroSystems, the Boeing supplier responsible for manufacturing the fuselage involved in the accident.
Though no one was seriously injured, the fallout from the incident has been widespread, leading to multiple probes into a company that promised a heightened focus on safety years ago following two 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed a total of 346 people in Indonesia and Ethiopia.
In a preliminary report released by the NTSB in February, investigators determined that four bolts designed to hold a panel in place were not reinstalled after the part was removed so fixes could be made to the plane’s fuselage. Investigators said they have been unable to locate the paperwork that shows who removed the bolts and why they weren’t reinstalled. Boeing officials have said that no such paperwork exists.
Boeing said it has already taken steps to prevent a reoccurrence, including ensuring that all work on aircraft moving through final assembly is properly documented.
Federal investigators and Boeing at times have been at odds during the door-panel probe.
At a March hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy accused Boeing of withholding information critical to the agency’s investigation, including the names of individuals who may have worked on the door panel as the plane was being assembled at Boeing’s facility in Renton, Wash.
In June, Boeing was scolded by the NTSB for revealing details of the door panel blowout investigation with media outlets without permission. Companies and organizations that are part of NTSB probes sign agreements not to publicly reveal information about the investigations.
The aftermath of the midair blowout has seen Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun’s decision to step down, as well as the departure of other senior leaders. Last week, the company named longtime aerospace executive Kelly Ortberg as its next chief executive. Ortberg, 64, will officially take over on Thursday.
The Federal Aviation Administration has imposed limits on the number of 737 Max jets Boeing can build until it is confident the company is following its own procedures for ensuring jets are safe. The FAA’s action has not only hurt the company’s reputation but has also affected its finances – the company last week reported a second-quarter net loss of $1.4 billion, more than triple that of a year earlier. Its revenue came in at $16.8 billion, down 14 percent from the same quarter last year.
The FAA also has come under scrutiny. Last week, Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), chair of the Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, sent a letter to FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker, noting that the agency had done nearly 300 audits of Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems in the two years prior but none resulted in any enforcement actions. However, a special audit commissioned by the agency turned up myriad noncompliance issues at Boeing. The FAA’s oversight of Boeing will be examined on the second day of the NTSB hearing.
A final report on the blowout, including probable causes and recommendations, could take a year to 18 months to complete.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
