Boeing will change design to prevent future explosions on the 737 MAX 9 door panel | Aviation News

Boeing said it plans to make design changes to prevent a future mid-air cabin panel explosion like the one on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 flight in January that sent the planemaker into its second major crisis in recent years.

Boeing Senior Vice President of Quality Elizabeth Lund said Tuesday that the planemaker is working on design changes that it hopes to implement within a year and then modernize the entire fleet.

Investigators said four main screws were missing from the plug on the new Alaska MAX 9.

“They are working on some design changes that will allow the door plug to not close if there is a problem until it is firmly secured,” Lund said during the National Transportation Safety Board’s (NTSB) first two-day investigative hearing in Washington. , DC.

Lund’s comments followed questions about why Boeing didn’t use a type of door plug warning system that the planemaker includes in regular doors, which sends an alert if it’s not completely secure.

The Alaska Airlines incident severely damaged Boeing’s reputation and led to a two-week grounding of the MAX 9, a ban from the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on expanding production, a criminal investigation, and the departure of several executives important. Boeing promised to make significant quality improvements.

The NTSB also released 3,800 pages of factual reports and interviews from the ongoing investigation.

Boeing said there is no documentation to document the removal of four important missing screws. Lund said Boeing has now placed a bright blue and yellow sign on the port plug when it arrives at the factory that says in large letters, “Do Not Open” and adds redundancy “to ensure the plug is not inadvertently opened.” It also has new procedures required if the door plug needs to be opened during production.

A flight attendant described the terrifying moment when the door lid blew off. “And then suddenly there was a very loud bang and a lot of noise, as if the door opened,” the commissioner said. “The masks fell, I saw the kitchen curtain being sucked towards the cabin.”

Lund and Doug Ackerman, Boeing’s vice president of supplier quality, will testify Tuesday during hearings scheduled to last 20 hours over two days. Ackerman said Boeing has 1,200 active suppliers for its commercial planes and 200 supplier quality auditors.

Lund said Tuesday that Boeing is still building “in the 20s” for monthly MAX production — far fewer MAXs than the 38 per month it is authorized to produce. “We are working to get back. But at one point, I think we were down to eight,” Lund told the NTSB.

Terry George, senior vice president and general manager of the Boeing program at Spirit AeroSystems, and Scott Grabon, senior director of 737 quality at Spirit, which makes the MAX fuselage, also testified Tuesday.

Last month, Boeing agreed to buy back Spirit AeroSystems, whose main factories were spun off in 2005, for $4.7 billion in stock.

The hearing is looking at issues including 737 manufacturing and inspections, safety management and quality management systems, FAA oversight and issues related to opening and closing the door lid.

Fuselage defects

In June, FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said the agency was “very lackadaisical” in its oversight of Boeing before January. FAA officials told the NTSB that Boeing employees did not always follow required processes.

Jonathan Arnold, an FAA aviation safety inspector, said a systemic problem he witnessed at the Boeing factory was employees not following instructions.

“This appears to be systemic when they deviate from their instructions. And typically, tool control is what I see most,” Arnold said.

Lund said that before the Jan. 5 crash, all 737 fuselages delivered to Boeing had defects — but the key is to make sure they are manageable. “What we don’t want are really big defects that impact the production system,” Lund said. “We were starting to see more and more problems like that, I’ll tell you, right around the time of the accident.”

NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy expressed frustration with Boeing. “This is not a public relations campaign for Boeing,” she said, urging the company to make clear what its policies were before the incident.

The interviews also addressed questions about factory culture, which has been criticized in congressional hearings. Whistleblowers alleged that Boeing retaliated against people who raised safety concerns on the factory floor.

Boeing executive Carole Murray described several problems with airframes coming from Spirit AeroSystems before the crash. “We had defects. Sealant was one of our biggest flaws that we wrote about,” she said. “We had multiple leaks around the window frame, defects in the skin.”

Michelle Delgado, a structural mechanic who worked as a contractor at Boeing and reworked the Alaska MAX 9 aircraft, told the NTSB that the workload is heavy and requires long hours of work.

“When we are very overloaded with work, it is pressing because with everything we have reduced some staff, so now it is as if in order for me not to have to deal with a worse situation tomorrow, I prefer to work a little 12 to 13 hour shift to do everything, for my own good, so I don’t have to deal with people the next day.”

Also in June, the NTSB said Boeing violated investigation rules when Lund provided nonpublic information to the media and speculated about possible causes.

Last month, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge and pay a fine of at least $243.6 million to resolve a U.S. Department of Justice investigation into two fatal 737 MAX crashes.