Last February, Southwest Airlines’ latest Boeing 737 Max was on one of its first flights when its automatic stabilization system was found to be malfunctioning, forcing the pilots to make an emergency landing shortly after takeoff.
Less than two months later, an Alaska Airlines 737 Max with an eight-hour flight was briefly grounded while mechanics resolved an issue with its fire detection system. In November, the engine of a just-delivered United Airlines 737 Max failed at 37,000 feet.
These incidents, which the airlines disclosed to the Federal Aviation Administration, weren’t widely reported. There was no indication that anyone was in danger and it was unclear who was ultimately answerable for the problems. But since January 5, when a panel on a two-month-old Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 jet blew up, such incidents have taken on latest resonance, raising further questions on the quality of Boeing’s planes.
“There are a lot of areas where it doesn’t seem like everything is connected right from the beginning,” said Joe Jacobsen, an engineer and aviation safety expert who spent greater than a decade at Boeing and greater than 25 years at the FAA
“The theme everywhere is shortcuts – getting things wrong,” he added.
Such reports and interviews with aviation safety experts and greater than two dozen current and former Boeing employees paint a disturbing picture of an organization long considered the pinnacle of American engineering. They suggest that Boeing has been struggling for years to enhance quality after two Max 8 crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed nearly 350 people.
The people say some of the key waiver levels that should keep Boeing planes protected seem like under strain. The experience level of Boeing’s workforce has declined since the pandemic began. The inspection process, intended to offer meaningful scrutiny of the work performed by mechanics, has been weakened over the years. Some suppliers had difficulty meeting quality standards while producing parts at the rate Boeing expected.
Under pressure to indicate regulators, airlines and passengers that the company is taking the latest crisis seriously, Boeing announced sweeping leadership changes on Monday. Chief Executive Dave Calhoun will leave at the end of the 12 months, and Stan Deal, head of the business aircraft division that produces the 737 Max, will retire immediately. The company’s president, Larry Kellner, has stepped down and won’t seek re-election to the board.
Upon taking on the top job in January 2020, Mr. Calhoun said he was committed to improving the company’s safety culture. It added directors with engineering and safety expertise and created a security committee on its board. Boeing said it has increased the number of quality inspectors for business aircraft by 20 percent since 2019, and the number of inspections per aircraft has also increased.
After the Max 8 disaster, Boeing and its regulators focused most on the cause of these accidents: faulty design and software. But some current and former employees say production quality problems were obvious to them at the time and will have been apparent to management and regulators as well.
Following the Jan. 5 accident, a six-week FAA audit of Boeing 737 Max production documented dozens of lapses in Boeing’s quality control practices. The agency gave the company three months, or until about the end of May, to resolve quality control issues.
Federal authorities determined that the panel explosion occurred at Boeing’s plant in Renton, Washington, where the 737 Max is assembled. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the panel was removed but was likely reinstalled without the screws holding it in place. This panel is named a “door plug” and is used to cover the gap left by an unnecessary emergency exit.
Current and former Boeing employees said the incident was a mirrored image of long-standing problems. Several said staff often faced intense pressure to fulfill production deadlines, which sometimes led to questionable practices that they feared could compromise quality and safety.
Davin Fischer, a former mechanic in Renton, who also he spoke to KIRO 7 television station in Seattlesaid he noticed a cultural shift that began around 2017 when the company introduced Max.
“They were trying to increase the speed of the plane, and then they were just chomping and chopping and chopping to go faster, faster, faster,” he said.
The Max was introduced in response to a brand new, fuel-efficient aircraft from European manufacturer Airbus. Boeing increased production from about 42 Max planes a month in early 2017 to about 52 the following 12 months. That rate dropped to virtually zero shortly after the second Ethiopian crash, when regulators around the world grounded the plane. Max flights resumed in late 2020, and the company began ramping up production again to avoid falling behind Airbus.
Now some Boeing executives admit they made mistakes.
“For years, we have prioritized moving the plane through the factory rather than getting it right, and that has to change,” Brian West, the company’s chief financial officer, said at an investor conference last week.
Calhoun also acknowledged that Boeing needs to enhance, but defended the company’s approach to production. “Over the past few years, we have been very careful not to rush the system and have never hesitated to slow down, pause production or hold deliveries to take the time needed to get things right,” he added. he said in January.
Current and former Boeing employees, most of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren’t authorized to check with reporters and feared retaliation, gave examples of how quality has suffered over the years. Many said they still respect the company and its employees and wish Boeing to succeed.
One Washington state quality manager who left Boeing last 12 months said staff who assemble airplanes sometimes try to put in parts which have not been recorded or inspected in an attempt to avoid wasting time by bypassing quality procedures designed to eliminate defective parts. or substandard components.
In one case, the worker said, the worker shipped parts from the receiving site on to the factory floor before a required inspection.
A employee at Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner plant in North Charleston, South Carolina, described quite a few problems during aircraft assembly, including improper routing of wires, which increases the risk of them rubbing against one another, which could result in damage.
Workers also sometimes went “inspector shopping” to seek out someone to approve the work, the worker said.
Some of the concerns echoed accusations of quality lapses made by several whistleblowers at a Boeing plant in South Carolina who spoke to The Times in 2019.
Several current and former staff in South Carolina and Washington state said that mechanics constructing planes could in some cases log out on their very own work. They argue that such “self-verification” removes a key layer of quality control.
In a press release Wednesday, Boeing said it eliminated self-inspections in South Carolina in 2021 and that the practice accounted for lower than 10 percent of inspections at other locations. The company inspects each plane before delivery to make certain wiring harnesses are properly spaced, the statement said, and doesn’t allow inspectors to make purchases.
Another factor that has been necessary in recent years has been the less experience Boeing employees had than before the pandemic.
When the pandemic struck in early 2020, air travel plummeted and lots of aviation executives believed it would take years for giant numbers of passengers to return. Boeing began shedding staff and inspiring staff to take buyouts or retire early. Ultimately, it lost about 19,000 employees across the company – including some with years of experience.
According to the union representing them, the Society of Professional Engineering Employees in Aerospace, in late 2022, Boeing lost experienced engineers who retired to lock in higher monthly pension payments that were tied to rates of interest. More than 1,700 union members have left the company this 12 months, up from about 1,000 the 12 months before. Members who left had a median of greater than 23 years with the company.
“We warned Boeing that it would lose enormous expertise and proposed some workarounds, but the company let us down,” Ray Goforth, executive director of the union, said in a press release, adding that he believed the company used the pensions as a chance to chop costs by replacing veterans “lower-paid engineers and entry-level technical workers.”
Boeing currently employs 171,000 people, including business aircraft, defense, services and other businesses. That number is up about 20 percent from the end of 2020. But many of the latest hires are less experienced staff, current and former employees say.
One Boeing worker who conducted quality inspections in Washington state until last 12 months said the company doesn’t at all times provide latest staff with sufficient training, sometimes leaving them to learn key skills from more experienced colleagues.
Boeing said employees have been asking for more training since Jan. 5 and that it is working to fulfill those needs, including by adding shop floor training this month.
District 751 of the International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers union, which represents greater than 30,000 Boeing staff, said the average tenure of its members has fallen sharply in recent years. The percentage of members with lower than six years of experience has roughly doubled to 50 percent from 25 percent before the pandemic.
After the Jan. 5 incident, Boeing announced quality-improvement changes that included adding inspections at its Renton plant and at a plant in Wichita, Kansas, owned by supplier Spirit AeroSystems, which produces Max plane bodies.
Boeing recently said it would now not accept Spirit’s Max bodies, which still require significant work. Previously, defects were tolerated that may very well be fixed later to maintain production on schedule.
It could take Boeing time to repair the problems, aviation experts say, frustrating airlines that need latest planes.
Some carriers recently said they were changing their expansion plans because they expected fewer planes from Boeing. Airlines may try to purchase more from Airbus.
“They have to go slow to go fast,” United Airlines CEO Scott Kirby told investors this month, referring to Boeing. “I think they do.”
