17 January 2024
WICHITA, Kan. (KSNW) – Boeing will open its doors to more and outside inspectors after the Jan. 9 incident where a door plug blew out mid-flight.
While nobody was seriously hurt in the incident, some welcomed more outside inspectors.
“I want to make it clear that I’m not attributing the recent mishap on the 737 Max to self-inspection. However, I find the practice of self-inspection within the Spirit company concerning,” said District 70 machinist and aerospace workers President Cornell Beard in a statement on Tuesday.
The statement goes on to say, “While there is a practice at Spirit that permits some mechanics to inspect their own work, this can result in biased outcomes. Not everyone upholds the same level of integrity, and relying on self-inspection may compromise the quality assurance process. While self-inspection may contribute to a company’s bottom line by expediting product movement, it doesn’t always ensure optimal outcomes. It’s prudent to involve a second set of eyes, especially when dealing with critical areas such as air travel.”
After grounding many 737 Max 9 aircraft following the incident, the Federal Aviation Administration and National Transportation Safety Board are investigating.
News source, The Hill, is reporting this week that Boeing commercial airplanes president and CE Stan Deal sent a memo to employees. In the memo, Deal mentions the company is now planning additional inspections throughout the build process at both Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems.
Some analysts point out that the door plug that blew out mid-flight is installed at Spirit AeroSystems of Wichita.
“They’re going to be looking at all of the manufacturing records; they will be interviewing absolutely everybody that touched the airplane,” said Senior Analyst Bruce McClelland with the Teal Aviation Group. “Frankly, it’s (Boeing Company) their only choice. They have to double down on all of their inspections. Obviously, something went wrong. And they’ve got to find what the root of that is. You could argue that sending more inspectors out is a bit of a band-aid. But it seems to be there’s more to this than just inspections. There probably is issues around who is responsible for what procedures. They have to do something, and this is a quick, immediate fix. Everything else like that takes a long time and requires FAA certification.”
McClelland would not speculate on how long the FAA could keep some 7737 MAX 9 planes grounded while investigations are completed.
He did point out that the plane in the January incident was very new to the Alaska Airlines fleet, being put into service for only a few months.
While the 737 MAX line has seen issues in recent years, McClelland says the long game for Boeing and Spirit still looks bright when it comes to sales of the 737 series.
“Boeing has a very long order book for the MAX. I suppose it’s possible airlines might lose faith in the airplane and cancel orders. But, frankly, where are they going to get them from? Airbus is sold out until 2030,” said McClelland. “Airlines need these airplanes because travel is coming back in a very strong way. You know, it’s just, unfortunately, yes, it’s a reputational problem for Boeing, but their customers are still going to want their products. As far as we can tell, the (737 MAX) dash-8 is operating as promised. And so I don’t see much change in what’s going to happen this year.”
As for the ongoing FAA-NTSB investigation into what went wrong, Spirit AeroSystems sent KSN a statement on Tuesday.
The statement says, “We are working seamlessly with Boeing in executing on the FAA’s Quality Management System in the production and manufacturing of the 737 MAX 9.”