Federal air safety regulators have opened a new investigation into the Boeing 787 Dreamliner – after the company said several employees committed “misconduct” by falsely claiming that tests had been completed.
The investigation will investigate whether Boeing completed inspections to confirm proper connection and landing gear where the wings of some 787 Dreamliner planes join the fuselage, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said.
The investigation will also look into “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 the production system and must also create a plan to address the in-service fleet” while the investigation is ongoing.
Boeing shares were down 1.5% at $177.03 late Monday afternoon.
“Several people not completing a required test”
In an April 29 email, Scott Stocker, who heads Boeing’s 787 program, said an employee saw what appeared to be an irregularity in a required 787 compliance test.
Mr. Stocker wrote that after receiving the report “we quickly reviewed the matter and learned that several people violated company policies by not performing a required test, but by recording the work as having been completed.”
In the email, addressed to employees in South Carolina, where the 787 is assembled, Mr. Stocker said Boeing promptly informed the FAA of what it had learned and said it was taking serious corrective action with “multiple” employees.
He added that “our engineering team assessed that this misconduct did not create an immediate safety of flight issue”.
“They put out faulty planes”
It comes weeks after a Congressional inquiry in April heard evidence about the safety culture and manufacturing standards at Boeing.
Sam Salehpour, a quality engineer at the company, told members of a Senate subcommittee that Boeing was taking shortcuts to boost production levels that could lead to planes breaking up.
He said of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner, which has more than 1,000 in use across airlines worldwide including British Airways, that excessive force was used to compress sections of the fuselage.
He claimed that the extra force could endanger the carbon-composite material used for the plane’s frame.
“They put out faulty planes,” he concluded, adding that he was threatened when he raised concerns about the matter.
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The engineer said he studied Boeing’s own data and concluded that the company was “taking manufacturing shortcuts in the 787 program that could significantly reduce the safety and life cycle of the planes.”
Boeing has denied its claims surrounding both the structural integrity of the Dreamliner and that factory workers jumped on sections of fuselage to force them to line up.
Two Boeing engineering executives said this week that its testing and inspection regimes found no signs of fatigue or cracking in the composite panels, saying they are virtually impervious to fatigue.
Since then, Boeing has been struggling with a monthly security crisis a panel blew off a Boeing 737 MAX 9 plane mid-flight in January.
The Department of Justice is conducting a criminal investigation into the air crisis.
The National Transportation Safety Board said four key bolts appeared to be missing from the plane.
Boeing said it believes required documents detailing the removal of the bolts were never created.
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