Boeing has a bad start to 2024, and the latest report from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has given the company a "hard blow" after being hit hard by the 737 Max 9 model's "door falling off" incident.
According to the New York Times and Bloomberg, on February 26, local time, an independent FAA investigation team composed of ** and aviation industry experts found that after two 737 MAX accidents in 2018 and 2019, Boeing did not improve enough, and its safety culture was still flawed. Among them, one panelist said he hoped the report would be a "wake-up call" for Boeing.
Boeing's factory in Washington state, USA, photo from Visual China.
According to the report, the investigation team is mainly responsible for reviewing Boeing's handling of the two 737 MAX accidents, and began preparing a review report in March last year. In the more than 50-page report, the team identified 27 findings and 53 related recommendations based on more than 250 interviews and more than 4,000 pages of internal Boeing documents.
The team found that Boeing has improved since the accident, but it is far from enough, and its safety culture remains flawed. First of all, due to the complex and disorderly management and training procedures, there is generally poor communication between Boeing's senior management and ordinary employees, and it is difficult for employees to understand the company's safety management system. Second, Boeing's protections are inadequate to prevent retaliation against employees who report safety concerns.
In interviews, employees showed their distrust of anonymous 'whistleblowing,' "The report recommends that Boeing improve a system for workers to voluntarily report safety issues, including establishing an investigative process to protect employees from retaliation from superiors."
In addition, the report accuses Boeing of not paying enough attention to "human factors and engineering" and not incorporating enough expert advice and pilot input into aircraft design and high-level decision-making.
The investigation team did not make much mention of the "door off" incident earlier this year in its report, but assessed that "quality issues such as these add to the Panel's concern that safety-related information or behavior is not being implemented across Boeing employees."
I really hope this report is a wake-up call for Boeing," said Rich Plunkett, a member of the panel and director of strategic development for the union, who represents Boeing's engineers. The investigation team called on Boeing to review its recommendations within six months and develop a plan to address them, as well as share the specific implementation date of the plan with the Federal Aviation Administration.
The FAA team released a report on its official website on the 26th.
People familiar with the matter told Bloomberg that the report came a day before Boeing CEO D**e Calhoun met with the head of the Federal Aviation Administration.
Later on the 26th, Boeing responded that it would "carefully review and learn" the recommendations in the report while continuing to work to improve the company's safety and quality programs. The Federal Aviation Administration said it would immediately begin reviewing the report and "determine next steps on recommendations, as appropriate."
The 737 MAX was suspended in March 2019 at the request of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) due to two crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia in 2018 and 2019, which killed 346 people. On December 16 of the same year, Boeing announced that it planned to suspend production of the 737 MAX from January 2020. Since then, Boeing has been working to get MAX back on board.
But as the MAX resumption of flights is gradually making progress, Boeing has suffered another heavy blow. On January 5, local time, an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 passenger plane crashed shortly after taking off from Portland, Oregon, USA, and a hatch fell during the flight, causing the plane to land in force.
Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX9 cabin door falls off, picture from Visual China.
After the "hatch fell off" incident, Boeing encountered one "trouble" after another: on January 17, due to the "serious failure" of the Boeing special plane, US Secretary of State Blinken was trapped in Switzerland and delayed his return to the United States; On the 24th, Alaska Airlines said that loose bolts were found on "many" 737 Max 9; On the same day, a Delta Boeing 757 was found to have its front wheels detached before takeoff......
On January 23, United Chief Executive Kirby, one of Boeing's largest customers, pressured Boeing to warn that the grounding of the 737 Max 9 could be "the last straw that crushed Boeing," and he was disappointed by Boeing's ongoing problems. Kirby's remarks are considered to be one of the harshest criticisms of Boeing since the outbreak of Boeing's latest crisis.
As soon as Kirby's voice fell, on February 19, local time, a United Airlines Boeing 757-200 passenger plane was diverted due to wing damage. There were 165 passengers on board at the time of the incident, but fortunately there were no people.
Bloomberg recently quoted news that as Boeing's largest customer, United Airlines is considering giving up its long-term cooperation with Boeing and choosing Airbus Europe as its new generation aircraft supplier instead. According to the report, United Airlines believes that the delivery of the 737 MAX 10 order between the company and Boeing has been delayed for five years, and the "flying door" incident is bound to lead to further delays, which has seriously jeopardized United's development plans.
This article is an exclusive manuscript of the Observer.com, and it is not allowed to be unauthorized and shall not be allowed.