The Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) stricter oversight of Boeing will continue indefinitely, the agency’s head said Friday, nearly a year after a piece of the fuselage of a new Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 broke off from the plane in full flight.
The crash, which occurred on January 5, 2024, led FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker to limit production of 737 MAX planes to 38 per month and temporarily ground 170 planes. The accident exposed serious safety problems at the North American plane maker and contributed to the departure of its then CEO, Dave Calhoun.
“We have performed an unprecedented number of unannounced audits; and we conduct monthly status reviews with Boeing executives to monitor progress. Our enhanced oversight is here to stay,” Whitaker said in a statement ahead of the company’s one-year milestone. ‘accident.
In February, Whitaker ordered Boeing to implement a safety and quality improvement plan and previously acknowledged that previous oversight “was overly flexible.”
“This is not a one-year project. What is needed is a fundamental cultural change at Boeing, driven by safety and quality rather than profits,” Whitaker said Friday. “This will require a continued and committed effort on Boeing’s part and constant oversight on our part.”
On Friday, Boeing released an update on its safety and quality efforts, saying it has implemented new quality controls and significantly reduced defects in the assembly of the 737 fuselage, supplied by Spirit AeroSystems, by increasing inspection points and implementing a customer quality approval process.
Whitaker said last month that he plans to resign his five-year term early, on January 20, when US President-elect Donald Trump takes office. Trump’s nominee to lead the Department of Transportation, Sean Duffy, told Reuters last month that he wanted to ensure “that we have safe planes coming out of Boeing.”
Source: Terra
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