FAA Investigates Boeing After Missed Inspections of 787 Dreamliner: NPR

The FAA says it is investigating Boeing after some required inspections of the 787 Dreamliner were not completed as required. Dreamliners are shown in production at Boeing’s manufacturing facility in North Charleston, SC

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The FAA says it is investigating Boeing after some required inspections of the 787 Dreamliner were not completed as required. Dreamliners are shown in production at Boeing’s manufacturing facility in North Charleston, SC

Logan Cyrus/AFP via Getty Images

The Federal Aviation Administration says it has opened an investigation into Boeing over inspections of the 787 Dreamliner that “may not yet be complete.”

The FAA said Monday that Boeing “voluntarily informed us in April” that the plane maker may not have performed the necessary inspections to confirm where the wings on certain 787 jets with the carbon fiber fuselage connected, there is sufficient connection and grounding.

In a statement to NPR, the FAA said it was also investigating “whether Boeing completed inspections and whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records.” The agency also said that Boeing must “reinspect all 787 aircraft still in production and also develop a remediation plan for the in-service fleet.”

The FAA previously said it would tighten oversight of Boeing and the 787 Dreamliner after finding production deficiencies on the wide-body aircraft in 2022.

Boeing told NPR that it “notified the FAA immediately and this does not represent an immediate aviation safety issue.” Boeing disclosed an internal email dated April 29 from Scott Stocker, the head of the 787 program, that was sent to Boeing employees in South Carolina, where the Dreamliner is manufactured.

Stocker wrote that an employee “saw something in our factory that he believed was not done correctly and spoke out about it.” The issue was presented to the leadership team, who notified the FAA. “After receiving the report, we quickly investigated the matter and determined that several individuals had violated company policy by failing to perform a required test but instead logging the work as completed.”

Boeing says it is taking “quick and serious corrective action with multiple teammates.”

In March, a former Boeing quality control manager turned whistleblower about safety problems on the 787 Dreamliner was found dead in a vehicle after apparently inflicting a self-inflicted shot. John Barnett had testified in a deposition the day before about a series of problems he said he found at Boeing’s factory in North Charleston, South Carolina.

Boeing came under renewed scrutiny for production and quality control failures after a door plug on a 737 Max 9 flew off mid-flight in January. After that incident, the FAA accused Boeing of “multiple instances” of quality control deficiencies in 737 Max production. Boeing is still reeling from the crashes of two 737 Max planes that killed a total of 346 people in 2018 and 2019. Faulty flight software was blamed for both crashes.