Source: AFP
US air safety authorities are investigating whether aviation giant Boeing completed required inspections on its 787 jetliner and whether employees falsified records, officials said Monday.
The issue centers on whether Boeing undertook required inspections to “confirm adequate adhesion and grounding where the wings join the fuselage on certain 787 Dreamliner airplanes,” the Federal Aviation Administration said in an email.
The FAA said it launched the investigation after Boeing notified it that the company may not have completed required inspections, which are needed to ensure safe and functional electrical flow between aircraft components.
“The FAA is investigating whether Boeing completed inspections and whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records,” the agency said. “At the same time, Boeing is re-inspecting all 787 airplanes still in the production system and must also create a plan to address the in-service fleet.”
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The issue came to light after a Boeing employee noticed an “irregularity” and raised the issue with a supervisor who escalated it further.
“We quickly looked into the matter and learned that several people were violating company policies by not doing the required testing but recording the work as complete,” Scott Stocker, Boeing’s 787 program manager, said in an email to staff. .
“We immediately informed our regulator of what we learned and are taking swift and serious corrective action with many of our teammates,” Stoker said, adding that the engineering staff determined the issues did not pose an immediate risk to flight safety.
The investigation adds to the litany of problems facing Boeing in the wake of a near-disaster Alaska Airlines flight in January in which a fuselage panel exploded.
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The FAA gave the company three months to come up with a plan to address “systemic quality control issues.”
Boeing’s management of the 787 was called into question at a Senate hearing on April 17, in which a company whistleblower testified that he was retaliated against after raising questions about the 787’s manufacturing processes that he believed threatened the safety of the planes.
An audit by an FAA advisory panel released in February found significant deficiencies in Boeing’s safety culture, describing a “disconnect” between the company’s senior management and other Boeing employees and skepticism that safety complaints from workers would not lead to retaliation.
In his message to employees, Stocker praised the worker for his presence, saying the company “will use this moment to celebrate him and remind us all of the kind of behavior we will and will not accept as a team ยป.
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Safety experts said the problems at Boeing point to significant safety culture flaws that won’t be reversed quickly.
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Industry watchers are waiting for more clues about Boeing’s future leadership after CEO Dave Calhoun said he will step down at the end of the year.
Glass Lewis, the proxy advisory firm, last week urged investors to vote against re-electing Calhoun to the board and two other board members who lead the audit and aerospace safety committees.
The move is necessary “to strongly signal dissatisfaction with the company’s oversight of its safety culture and its efforts to transform that culture, which, in our view, has not moved quickly enough to adequately mitigate the shareholder concerns when safety incidents occur, as evidenced by the Alaska accident,โ Glass Lewis said in a note.
Source: AFP