The Seattle Times this morning has two articles about added scrutiny and jeopardy Boeing may be facing. The two articles appear side by side in the print version with the main title:
MAX blowout draws new U.S. scrutiny
The DOJ (Chis Strohm, Greg Farrel, Bloomberg — “INQUIRY | Incident could violate deferred-prosecution agreement over previous crashes) is taking a new look at whether the door plug blowout in the Alaska Airlines MAX 9 airplane on Jan 5 falls under the deferred-prosecution agreement with Boeing over the two previous fatal crashes of the MAX 8 in 2018 and 2019. That agreement , reached in the waning days of the TFG administration, inspired intense criticism at the time.
A Congressional report assessing shorfalls in Boeing’s “safety culture” before the blowout found that
steps the plane maker had taken to bolster safety following the 737 MAX crashes weren’t working as intended.
The blowout occurred just 2 days before the deferred-prosecution expired, and if the DOJ is serious about enforcing it, could result in criminal penalties. The probe itself, if opened, could further delay ramping up 737 MAX production rates AND derail or delay inquiries by the NTSB into the door plug incident.
The FAA (Dominick Gates, Seattle Times — ”FAA issues Boeing ultimatum over quality control problems”) wrote that the FAA, after a Tuesday all-day meeting between Mike Whitaker (new FAA Administrator) and Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun (and “his senior safety team”) released a “harshly worded” statement on Wednesday and set a 90-day deadline for Boeing to get its act together (my short form).
The NTSB expert panel convened to specifically look at the blowout had identified the lack of bolts to keep the panel from sliding up in the frame was due to them not having been installed by the Boeing rework team, identified substantive upgrades to Boeing’s quality and safety systems and directed Boeing to have an action plan in place within 6 months. The FAA cut that down to three months.
The FAA is also looking at hiring an external third party and remove “some of” the oversight conducted by Boeing engineers. (How about ALL!)