US imposes sanctions on Boeing for sharing information on 737 Max 9 investigation

Boeing is facing sanctions from U.S. investigators for sharing information about a federal investigation into a burst door stopper that left a gaping hole in a Boeing 737 Max 9.

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said on Thursday that Boeing had “blatantly violated” the agency’s investigative rules and a signed agreement by failing to provide the media with public investigative information and speculating about possible causes of the door latch bursting on a Boeing passenger plane on January 5 in Portland, Oregon.

In the incident, a panel was blown out of an Alaska Airlines Max 9 that blocked the space for an additional emergency door. The pilots were able to land safely and there were no injuries.

The NTSB said a Boeing executive provided nonpublic investigative information about the Alaska Airlines incident to the media during a news conference Tuesday that the agency has neither reviewed nor approved for release. The NTSB said Boeing portrayed the NTSB’s investigation as a search for the person responsible for working on the door plugs. But the agency said it was focused on the probable cause of the accident, not on assigning blame to any one person or assessing liability.

Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment early Thursday. Shares of The Boeing Co., based in Arlington, Virginia, were unchanged before the market opened.

“As a result of Boeing’s recent actions, Boeing will retain its status as a party but will no longer have access to the investigative information the NTSB is creating in the course of establishing the facts of the accident,” the agency said in a prepared statement.

The NTSB said it could subpoena any relevant documents it needs during the course of its investigation and would also subpoena Boeing to an investigative hearing on August 6 and 7 in Washington DC. The agency said Boeing cannot ask questions of other participants, unlike other parties.

The NTSB said it will coordinate with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antifraud Division and inform them about Boeing’s recent unauthorized release of investigative information related to its 737 Max 9 door stopper investigation.

In May, the Justice Department told a federal judge that Boeing had violated an agreement that would have allowed the company to avoid criminal prosecution following two fatal crashes of its 737 Max aircraft.

It is now up to the Justice Department to decide whether to press charges against Boeing. Prosecutors will inform the court of their intention to proceed by July 7 at the latest, the department said at the time.