One of the first breaking news of this year, taking us all out of the holiday numbness, was a plug-in door blowing out mid-air on a Boeing 737 Max 9 during an Alaska Airlines flight. The incident happened on 5 January and was followed by a grounding by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) of all 737 Max 9s with the plug-in door configuration.
As if this incident set off a row of dominos, Boeing has been in the news on a weekly basis ever since, not just with findings of quality control issues of the 737 production line, but with other models as well.
In the follow-up investigation of the Alaska Airlines blow-out, it has been revealed that Alaska Airlines pilots had flagged depressurisation problems on previous flights operated on the same plane, which had been ignored. More worryingly, the FAA has found loose bolts and even misdrilled holes in some aircraft’s fuselage. In the last update, the FAA gave Boeing 90 days to “must develop a comprehensive action plan to address its systemic quality-control issues to meet FAA’s non-negotiable safety standards.”
Meanwhile other Boeing models have also been facing problems. The windshield of a 777 cracked on 28 February and earlier this year, the nose wheel of a 757 just fell off and rolled down the runway at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport. Yet another wheel fell off a 777-200 on 7 March, damaging several cars in San Francisco. On 4 March, the engine of a 737 burst into flames only minutes after take-off and, just two days ago, on the morning of 11 March, a Latam Airlines flight operated on a 787-9 Dreamliner suddenly lost altitude about one hour before reaching its destination, sending passengers flying through the cabin.
A series of unfortunate events?
Small incidents happen and for a serious crash to take place, a lot of things have to go wrong. That is why aviation is widely considered the safest mode of transportation, flying safety having reached “best-ever” results in 2023, according to IATA. But Boeing seems to have crossed past the line of mere coincidences.
Concerns over the manufacturer’s quality and safety standards have been raised for years. Management has been reported to prioritise stock growth instead of research and development, while the FAA regulators who were supposed to verify the standards of aircraft have been revealed to either be lost in front of presentations from the manufacturer or even be, in fact, employed by Boeing.
Models from the 737 Max family have been involved in several accidents over the past few years. In 2019, all Boeing 737 Max aircraft were grounded for one and a half years after two fatal crashes occurred within 6 months of each other, a Lion Air flight in Indonesia and an Ethiopian Airlines flight from Addis Ababa to Nairobi. Investigations revealed that both accidents were caused by a system Boeing did not tell pilots about that could cause the plane to nosedive, triggerable by only one sensor, that could easily fault, and with no override option from pilots.
In the most recent development, John Barnett, a former Boeing quality manager was found dead in his truck amid testifying against the manufacturer in a lawsuit in Charleston. Barnett, who died from an “alleged self-inflicted gunshot”, had been flagging quality and safety oversights from Boeing since before his retirement in 2017. According to him, “sub-standard” plane parts were still installed on aircraft, even taken out of the bin, and fitted to planes, just to meet production deadlines. Moreover, he was saying that the emergency oxygen mask deployment system on the 787 Dreamliners built at the plant failed 25% of the time.
Although Boeing denied the allegations, an investigation by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) revealed in 2017 that at least 53 “non-conforming” parts were indeed unaccounted for in the factory, allegedly declared lost. Boeing was ordered to immediately locate and detail the missing parts. Soon after, on its own initiative, the manufacturer admitted it had “identified some oxygen bottles received from the supplier that were not deploying properly”, but claimed the defective tanks had not been installed on planes.
Airbus, Boeing’s European competitor, could not possibly meet global demand by itself and a new major manufacturer emerging is unlikely, not if they take the time to properly develop aircraft instead of rushing to production. So, while Boeing is undeniably taking a hit, its survival is far form being at stake. Instead, what regulators and airlines expect the company to do is switch focus back to quality and aircraft development instead of just the financial and profitability side of business. Or, in the words of Ryanair CEO Michael O’Leary, Boeing needs to “get their shit together“.
