The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has completed a six-week audit of Boeing’s manufacturing of the 737 Max following an incident in which a door panel was torn from a 737 Max 9 on an Alaska Airlines flight early this year. The audit found numerous instances of noncompliance at Boeing and its key supplier, Spirit AeroSystems.
The FAA spotlighted “multiple instances” where Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems failed to meet quality control requirements. However, the agency has not disclosed the specifics of these supposed lapses.
The FAA failed Boeing on 33 of 89 product audits, recording 97 instances of noncompliance. Spirit AeroSystems, responsible for constructing the 737 Max’s fuselage, underwent 13 product audits, failing seven.
On one occasion, auditors saw Spirit AeroSystems mechanics testing a door seal with a hotel card key, which they noted was “not identified/documented/called-out in the production order.”
The FAA may have contributed to an apparent decline in standards in the aviation industry itself, however, pushing Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) hiring policies, which even encompass people with “psychiatric disability” and “severe intellectual disability.”
In addition to the Alaska Airlines door incident, Boeing jets have experienced multiple issues in just the last week, including an aircraft driving off a runway, an aircraft losing a tire, and an aircraft injuring 50 passengers after hurling them into its ceiling during a “technical event.”
