Boeing says it has made significant quality improvements in 737 Max production since one of its planes lost a panel during a terrifying flight in January.
The crash on an Alaska Airlines plane caused no serious injuries but raised new concerns about the quality of Boeing's planes more than five years after two fatal crashes. In response, Boeing announced changes aimed at improving quality and safety, including expanding training, streamlining plans and procedures, and reducing defects from suppliers.
Speaking to reporters at the company's Renton, Washington, factory this week, Boeing executive Elizabeth Lund revealed new details about how the 737 Max left the factory missing four crucial bolts that secure panels called door plugs.
One key change Boeing has made since January is requiring 737 Max planes to pass more rigorous inspections before being shipped to Renton, near Seattle, for final assembly. The planes are made by Spirit AeroSystems in Wichita, Kansas, a supplier that Boeing plans to acquire soon.
The changes, implemented several months ago, have significantly reduced the number of critical defects that have to be repaired at Boeing factories, said Lund, who is senior vice president of quality for Boeing's commercial airplanes unit. Supplier inspections also allow Boeing to build the MAX more quickly once the planes arrive at the factories. The company is also producing fewer planes than planned because the Federal Aviation Administration limited production rates after the January flight.
“We're strengthening our presence at our suppliers, making sure the parts are perfect when they arrive, inspecting them there, reworking them there and then shipping them out,” Lund said. “The benefits are really enormous.”
The January accident was another blow to Boeing's reputation following two crashes of its Max 8 planes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people. The crashes led to the Max being grounded worldwide for about 20 months, but the plane began flying again in late 2020.
For years after the crash, Boeing executives assured regulators, airlines and the public that they had made sweeping changes to improve the quality and safety of their planes. But the January accident and allegations of shoddy work and poor business decisions from current and former employees in outlets such as The New York Times suggest that the changes didn't go far enough.
Rand said previous Max crises had forced Boeing to revamp its engineering methods, but the latest incidents have prompted the company to improve its production processes.
“This incident gave us the opportunity to see a different area,” she said.
When the aircraft involved in the January flight arrived at a Boeing factory in summer 2023, five rivets did not meet specifications. While the aircraft was being worked on at the factory, Boeing and Spirit discussed how to address the issues. By the time it was determined that the rivets needed to be replaced, work on the aircraft was nearly complete.
Rand described what happened next: The panel was removed to repair a nearby rivet, but no one recorded its removal. A team then prepared the plane for moving outside and closed the panel. Because there was no paperwork, employees didn't realize that the four bolts that held the door in place needed to be replaced. The panel fit snugly into the gap it covered and survived about 500 hours of flight before exploding at an altitude of about 16,000 feet.
The National Transportation Safety Board, which is investigating the accident, has criticized Boeing for not properly documenting the removal of the door plugs.
The Federal Aviation Administration, Boeing's main regulator, has also required the company to make significant changes to improve quality.
Other improvements the company has made include strengthening the training new hires receive before they begin working on planes and providing more on-the-job training, Mr. Rand said. The company has provided more than 160 workplace coaches, including veteran and retired mechanics, to help new hires get up to speed on the job.
The company is also accelerating efforts to streamline programs and procedures, Mr. Lund said. Boeing has stepped up inspections and internal oversight, and has placed a renewed emphasis on encouraging employees to speak up about their concerns, gathering thousands of new comments and suggestions for quality improvements.
Boeing is also working to reduce so-called moving tasks, tasks that are done out of sequence that can increase the risk of mistakes and lead to other problems. The company said it has imposed stricter requirements that must be met before a plane can move on the production line. This and other changes have allowed the company to reduce the amount of moving tasks by more than 50 percent, Lund said.