SEATTLE (AP) — The Federal Aviation Administration said Monday it has opened an investigation into Boeing after the beleaguered company reported that workers at a South Carolina factory falsified inspection records on certain 787 planes. Boeing said its engineers determined that the misconduct did not create “an immediate flight safety issue.”
In an email sent to Boeing employees in South Carolina on April 29, Scott Stocker, who leads the 787 program, said a worker observed an “irregularity” in a required wing-to-body bond test and reported it to the your manager.
“After receiving the report, we quickly reviewed the matter and discovered that several people were violating Company policies by not performing a required test but recording the work as completed,” Stocker wrote.
Boeing notified the FAA and is taking “swift and serious corrective actions with several teammates,” Stocker said.
No planes have been taken out of service, but having to perform out-of-service testing on the planes will delay delivery of the jets still being built at the final assembly plant in North Charleston, South Carolina.
Boeing must also create a plan to deal with planes already flying, the FAA said.
The 787 is a twin-aisle plane that debuted in 2011 and is primarily used for long international flights.
“The company voluntarily informed us in April that it may not have completed required inspections to confirm proper bonding and grounding where the wings join the fuselage on certain 787 Dreamliner airplanes,” the agency said in a written statement. “The FAA is investigating whether Boeing completed inspections and whether company officials may have falsified aircraft records.”
The company has been under intense pressure since a door lock exploded from a Boeing 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight in January, leaving a hole in the plane. The accident halted the progress Boeing appeared to be making as it recovered from two fatal accidents of Max jets in 2018 and 2019.
Accidents in Indonesia and Ethiopia, which killed 346 people, are also back in the spotlight. Families of some of the victims pressed the Justice Department to revive a criminal fraud charge against the company, ruling that Boeing’s continued lapses violated the terms of a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement.
In April, a Boeing whistleblower, Sam Salehpour, testified at a congressional hearing that the company took manufacturing shortcuts to produce the 787s as quickly as possible; its allegations were not directly related to those the company disclosed to the FAA last month. The company rejected Salehpour’s allegations.
In his email, Stocker praised the worker who came forward to report what he saw: “I wanted to personally thank and commend that teammate for doing the right thing. It is critical that each of us speak up when we see something that may not seem right or needs attention.”
