By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A U.S. senator overseeing aviation issues urged the head of the Federal Aviation Administration on Monday to demand transparency and accountability in Boeing’s quality improvement efforts.
Sen. Tammy Duckworth, a Democrat who chairs an aviation subcommittee, said that “Boeing’s safety and quality assurances will be meaningless without appropriate transparency and accountability.” Boeing submitted a comprehensive quality improvement plan Thursday after FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker gave Boeing 90 days in late February to develop a comprehensive plan to address “systemic quality control issues.”
Whitaker spoke with Duckworth by phone Monday. He will be on Capitol Hill Tuesday to brief members of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee. The FAA and Boeing did not immediately comment.
“No matter how many planes Boeing builds, we need to see a strong and unwavering commitment to safety and quality that lasts over time,” Whitaker said last week. “This is about systemic change, and there is still a lot of work to be done.”
Whitaker in February banned Boeing from increasing production of its best-selling plane after a door panel exploded during a Jan. 5 flight of a new Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9. He said last week that he did not expect Boeing to receive approval to increase production of the MAX “in the coming months” and that he has not yet had any discussions with Boeing on the matter.
Boeing has announced six critical, safety-focused production areas it will address. Key performance measures include employee skill, number of hours issues need to be addressed, including total rework hours per aircraft, and supplier shortages.
Boeing said the data will provide “real-time insight into the health of the production system, allowing the company to identify and remediate potential quality and therefore potential safety risks before they fully mature.”
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun, who held a three-hour meeting with Whitaker on Thursday, will leave the company by the end of the year as part of a broader management change announced in the wake of the Alaska Airlines incident. has not yet appointed a replacement.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Jacqueline Wong and Gerry Doyle)
