Boeing has gotten itself into more trouble with the feds after allegedly spilling confidential information about the investigation into January’s terrifying door plug blowout on an Alaska Airlines flight.
An unnamed executive for the troubled plane maker told a media briefing earlier this week that missing paperwork may have caused the freak mid-air accident in January when a door plug flew off a Boeing 737 Max 9 shortly after takeoff, sparking a federal investigation and crisis within the company.
But the National Transportation Safety Board on Thursday tore into Boeing for revealing “non-public investigative information” at the briefing and also allegedly misrepresenting the entire probe by suggesting the missing paperwork was to blame. Boeing had claimed the four bolts needed to keep the door plug in place had never been installed because workers never received the paperwork telling them to do so.
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In a press release, investigators said Boeing “blatantly violated NTSB investigative regulations” with these public comments, which the NTSB described as pure speculation. The air maker was accused of “offering opinions and analysis on factors it suggested were causal to the accident.”
Boeing will now be iced out of the investigation, according to the NTSB, which said the company will no longer have access to investigative information on the incident. On top of that, investigators said they will refer to the violation to the Justice Department.
The scolding comes as Boeing is at the center of multiple federal investigations and whistleblower complaints over its safety record, just a few years after the plane maker dodged criminal charges in two 737 Max 8 crashes that killed 346 people.
