The Federal Aviation Administration said on Monday that it had opened a fresh investigation into Boeing after the aircraft manufacturer disclosed that its employees might have bypassed some required inspections of its 787 Dreamliners.
The federal air-safety regulator said in a statement that Boeing had “voluntarily” come forward in April with the information that it might have skipped checks on “adequate bonding and grounding where the wings join the fuselage,” or body, of certain 787 planes. As part of its inquiry, the FAA said, it is probing into whether Boeing’s employees may have falsified aircraft records.
With the investigation ongoing, the agency said that, “Boeing is reinspecting all 787 airplanes still within the production system and must also create a plan to address the in-service fleet.”
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A person familiar with the matter told The Wall Street Journal on Monday that hundreds of the wide-body jets could be affected by the disclosure and investigation.
The possible failure to inspect is not an immediate issue for planes currently in use, the FAA said. “As the investigation continues, the F.A.A. will take any necessary action—as always—to ensure the safety of the flying public,” it added in its statement.
Boeing notified the FAA after Scott Stocker, an executive overseeing the 787 program, flagged the issue in an April 29 internal email. Stocker said that a Boeing employee had reported noticing irregularities during a quality test on the jet wing’s connection to the fuselage.
“After receiving the report, we quickly reviewed the matter and learned that several people had been violating Company policies by not performing a required test, but recording the work as having been completed,” Stocker wrote.
Stocker said in his message, which was shared by a Boeing spokesperson on Monday, that “swift and serious” action was being taken by the company to address the matter. He also praised the employee for coming forward.
Shares of Boeing briefly slumped after the revelation that it had blown the whistle on itself, plunging $7 or 4.6 percent before recovering slightly and closing at $178.35, down 0.8 percent.
Boeing and its manufacturing practices have been under a harsh spotlight since an incident in which a door plug on a 737 MAX jet operated by Alaska Airlines blew out mid-flight on Jan. 5. As well as the FAA, the National Transportation Safety Board and U.S. Justice Department are probing the blowout and Boeing’s broader approach to safety.
Boeing has struggled both in the years before and the months since the Alaska Airlines incident to contend with a number of employees who have spoken up about potential safety issues, as well as allegations of retaliation against those whistleblowers.
Use of the company’s safety concern tip portal is up a reported 500 percent, and two whistleblowers were among those who testified before Congress in a pair of related hearings last month.
Two other whistleblowers have also died in as many months. First was John Barnett, a former quality manager for Boeing’s South Carolina plant who was found dead of a suspected self-inflicted gunshot wound in the middle of giving deposition testimony in his whistleblower lawsuit earlier this year.
And late last month, Joshua Dean, a former employee of a Boeing supplier, died after spending two weeks hospitalized in critical condition from pneumonia and a bacterial infection.
