Boeing faces new US investigation over ‘missed’ 787 inspections | Boeing

Boeing is facing a new investigation after the plane maker told U.S. regulators that it may not have properly conducted some quality checks on its 787 Dreamliner planes.

The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said it was investigating “whether Boeing completed inspections and whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records.”

The regulator said that during the ongoing investigation, Boeing employees would reinspect Dreamliners that have not yet been delivered to airline customers and the company would develop an “action plan” for the planes already in service.

The FAA said Boeing “voluntarily informed us in April that it may not have completed the inspections required to confirm adequate bonding and grounding at the point where the wings connect to the fuselage on certain 787 Dreamliner aircraft.” are”.

The Boeing manager who oversees the 787 program, Scott Stocker, wrote in an internal memo obtained by the Guardian that the problem had been reported by an employee and was a case of “misconduct” but not an “immediate problem of the company.” Aviation safety”.

The memo said the company concluded that “several individuals violated company policy by failing to perform a required test but not logging the work as completed.”

“We immediately informed our regulator of our findings and, along with several teammates, are taking swift and serious corrective action,” the memo continued.

Stocker said the company would “celebrate” the employee who spoke out.

Last month, a whistleblower made allegations of varying quality about several Boeing models and called on Boeing to ground all 787 Dreamliner jets worldwide, warning that there was a risk of premature failure.

Boeing engineer Sam Salehpour claimed the company took shortcuts to reduce production bottlenecks in making the 787. He also expressed concerns about production of the 777, another wide-body aircraft. The FAA is investigating these allegations.

Salehpour, who has worked at Boeing for more than a decade, said he faced retaliation, including threats and exclusion from meetings, after raising concerns about an issue including a gap between parts of the 787’s fuselage.

In January, a door panel on a Boeing 737 Max plane ejected mid-air during an Alaska Airlines flight, forcing the plane to make an emergency landing.