Federal aviation safety regulators have opened a new investigation into the Boeing 787 Dreamliner – after the company said several employees engaged in “misconduct” by falsely claiming tests had been carried out.
The investigation will examine whether Boeing performed inspections to confirm adequate bonding and grounding where the wings of some 787 Dreamliner planes join the fuselage, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said.
The investigation will also examine “whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records,” the US federal government agency added.
The FAA said Boeing is “re-inspecting all 787 aircraft still in production and must also create a plan to care for the in-service fleet” while the investigation is ongoing.
Boeing shares were down 1.5% at $177.03 Monday afternoon.
“Several people do not carry out the required tests”
In an April 29 email, Scott Stocker, head of Boeing’s 787 program, said an employee noticed what appeared to be an irregularity in a compliance test required for the 787.
Mr. Stocker wrote that after receiving the report “we quickly reviewed the matter and learned that several individuals had violated company policies by not performing a required test, but recording the work as finished”.
In the email to employees in South Carolina, where the 787 is assembled, Mr. Stocker said Boeing promptly informed the FAA of what it had learned and was taking serious corrective action with “several” employees.
He added that “our engineering team has assessed that this fault does not create an immediate flight safety issue.”
“They produce defective planes”
This comes weeks after a congressional investigation in April heard testimony about safety culture and manufacturing standards at Boeing.
Sam Salehpour, the company’s quality engineer, told members of a Senate subcommittee that Boeing is taking shortcuts to increase production levels, which could lead to jetliners being broken.
He said of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, which has more than 1,000 in service with airlines worldwide including British Airways, that excessive force was used to trap sections of the fuselage.
He claimed the added force could compromise the carbon composite material used for the plane’s chassis.
“They produce defective planes“, he concluded, while adding that he had been threatened when he raised his concerns on this subject.
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The engineer said he studied Boeing’s own data and concluded that the company was “taking shortcuts in manufacturing the 787 program, which could significantly reduce the safety and life cycle of the aircraft.”
Boeing has denied claims about the Dreamliner’s structural integrity and that factory workers allegedly jumped on sections of the fuselage to force them into alignment.
Two Boeing technical officials said this week that its testing and inspection programs had found no signs of fatigue or cracking in the composite panels, saying they were almost immune to fatigue.
Boeing grapples with months-long safety crisis a panel exploded from a Boeing 737 MAX 9 plane in mid-flight in January.
The Justice Department is conducting a criminal investigation into the air emergency.
The National Transportation Safety Board said four key bolts appeared to be missing from the plane.
Boeing said it believed the required documents detailing the removal of the bolts were never created.
Sky news