Boeing is under investigation by the FAA after it was revealed that some employees failed to perform safety tests on the wings of a 787 but recorded it anyway

• The FAA said Monday it is investigating Boeing amid reports employees failed to perform 787 checks.

• An internal Boeing memo said some workers recorded themselves completing a test they had not performed.

• The tests focused on the connection between the wings and fuselage of the 787 Dreamliner.

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating whether Boeing employees may have falsified safety records for the 787 Dreamliner, adding to the manufacturer’s concerns as it comes under regulatory scrutiny.

In a statement Monday, the FAA said Boeing voluntarily indicated that it may not have performed proper quality checks on the connection between the wings and fuselage of some 787s.

“The FAA is investigating whether Boeing completed inspections and whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records,” the statement said.

No planes are expected to be taken out of service, and Boeing said the outage “did not pose an immediate aviation safety concern.”

The investigation comes after Scott Stocker, head of the 787 production program, issued an internal memo on April 29 saying the company found that several employees had failed to complete required tests.

Stocker’s memo, seen by Business Insider, said a Boeing employee noticed an “irregularity in a required wing body connection compliance test” and reported it to his supervisor.

“After receiving the report, we quickly investigated the matter and determined that multiple individuals had violated company policy by failing to perform a required test but instead logging the work as completed,” Stocker wrote.

Stocker added that Boeing had taken “swift and serious corrective action” against those who violated the procedure and would discuss with multiple teams how to prevent the problem from occurring again.

In response to BI’s inquiries, a Boeing spokesperson said the company had notified the FAA and that “this does not pose an immediate aviation safety issue for the operating fleet.”

Boeing employees will have to repeat testing of the remaining 787s in production, which will likely lead to further delays in deliveries from the Charleston, South Carolina, factory. That could mean more problems for customers, as American Airlines announced on May 1 that it was canceling some flights because it wasn’t receiving enough 787 aircraft.

The plane maker was under intense regulatory pressure after a door plug on a 737 Max exploded mid-flight in January, prompting the FAA to ground more than 170 of the planes. An administration report later found that Boeing’s 737 Max production had failed 33 of 89 audits since then.

The door plug incident has reignited scrutiny of Boeing and its 737 planes, which were initially the subject of safety concerns after two crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia combined in 2018 and 2019 killed 346 people.

The backlash has led the company to recalibrate its factories and delivery schedules. Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said the manufacturer must admit “our mistake” and restore its safety record.

In its first-quarter 2024 report, Boeing said the company was burning $3.9 billion in cash, up from $786 million in the same period last year.

Several former Boeing employees turned company whistleblowers raised concerns about the production of the 787 Dreamliner, claiming that the manufacturer put profits over quality.

A whistleblower, Sam Salehpour, said in April that he saw Boeing “taking shortcuts to reduce bottlenecks during the 787 assembly process” amid a “schedule over safety” culture. Boeing denied his claims.

Another former employee, John Barnett, criticized 787 production for years, saying he observed problems with the use of oxygen masks on the jets that he said were not properly addressed.

Barnett was scheduled to testify in a whistleblowing case against Boeing, but was found dead in March of what authorities said was a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Joshua Dean, a former employee of Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems who accused the company of poor quality, died Wednesday after a sudden illness.

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