Boeing unauthorized 737 work issue should have been caught years earlier, NTSB says

By David Shepardson

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The head of the National Transportation Safety Board said on Wednesday the Alaska Airlines Boeing (NYSE:) 737 MAX 9 mid-air emergency was entirely avoidable because the planemaker should have addressed unauthorized production work long ago.

“This accident should have never happened. This should have been caught years before,” NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy told reporters on the second day of a hearing into the Jan. 5 incident in which a panel blew off an Alaska Airlines flight after takeoff from Portland, Oregon. 

“There have been numerous, numerous Boeing audits, FAA audits, compliance reviews, compliance actions plans, noting a history of an unauthorized work, unauthorized removals,” she added.

Federal Aviation Administration official Brian Knaup said at the hearing the agency has found additional issues with unauthorized removals by Boeing. “We have an open enforcement action around removals,” Knaup said, adding the FAA has increased investigations of hotline and whistleblower reports.

He defended the FAA’s oversight of Boeing before the accident. “We believe we conducted effective oversight,” Knaup said, but conceded it was better since the accident. “Safety culture isn’t a compliance thing.”

He said the FAA has increased unannounced audits and acquired dedicated space for personnel at Boeing’s 737 factory and at supplier Spirit AeroSystems (NYSE:), which Boeing is in the process of acquiring.

The NTSB’s Homendy added there was no guarantee the door panel issue would not occur again.

Boeing created no paperwork for the removal of the 737 MAX 9 door plug – a piece of metal shaped like a door covering an unused emergency exit – or its re-installation during production, and still does not know what employees were involved. The plug was missing four key bolts when it was delivered to Alaska Airlines, NTSB has said.

Boeing did not immediately comment.

If Boeing had learned from prior unauthorized work, “then this would have been caught and this would have been prevented,” Homendy said, adding the board was also scrutinizing FAA oversight of Boeing. 

“We have a lot of questions — there was information known,” Homendy said about FAA oversight of Boeing, citing defects, missing and incorrect documents, as well as incorrect policies that “have been issues for years. This is not new.”

After the incident, the FAA barred Boeing from expanding production beyond 38 planes per month and announced a 90-day review of the planemaker. It has required significant quality and manufacturing improvements before it will allow the planemaker to hike production.

FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker said in June the agency was “too hands off” in Boeing oversight. The FAA’s approach before the mid-air accident was “too focused on paperwork audits and not focused enough on inspections,” Whitaker added. The FAA has also boosted the number of inspectors at Boeing and Spirit factories.

“We will continue our aggressive oversight of the company and ensure it fixes its systemic production-quality issues,” the FAA said on Wednesday.

The FAA disclosed on Wednesday it has 16 open enforcement actions involving Boeing, with eight of them launched since the Alaska Airlines incident.

Last week, Senate Commerce Committee Chair Maria Cantwell and Senator Tammy Duckworth introduced legislation to review and strengthen safety management systems at the FAA.

Homendy said the NTSB plans to conduct a safety culture survey of employees at Boeing’s factory in Renton, Washington, that builds the 737 MAX.