National Transportation Safety Board Chairman Jennifer Homendy speaks at the National Transportation Safety Board’s investigative hearing into the blown left center exit door plug on a Boeing 737-9 MAX during Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 on January 5, 2024. On August 6, the board of directors was headquartered in Washington, DC, USA.
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A boeing company Safety chiefs told a federal safety hearing on Tuesday that the company is studying design changes to avoid a repeat of a door jam blowout on a nearly new 737 Max 9 earlier this year.
The National Transportation Safety Board, the U.S. agency that investigates aviation accidents, released more than 3,000 pages of documents ahead of two days of hearings on Flight 1282, including interviews with employees at Boeing and its embattled airframer spirit aerospace systems inc.some of which noted the need for rework.
“I just want to remind you that this is not a PR exercise for Boeing,” NTSB Chairman Jennifer Homendy said. “This is an investigation into what happened on January 5th. Do you understand?”
Bolts holding the door in place were reportedly not installed preliminary findings. Although no serious injuries were caused, the accident once again drew attention to Boeing’s safety procedures and a series of manufacturing defects that required changes to the company’s factory, including one that caused door jams to be removed but not fixed last year.
“They’re making some changes to the design so that if there’s any problem, the doors and plugs won’t close until they’re firmly secured,” said Elizabeth Lund, safety chief for Boeing’s commercial airplanes division. Lund It said the changes would be implemented within the year.
Exhibits are displayed during an investigative hearing by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in Washington, DC, the United States, on Tuesday, August 6, 2024.
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Blowout sends Boeing tumbling Back to crisis mode and prompting a management reshuffle, including the appointment of a new CEO, Robert “Kelly“ Ortberg, an aerospace veteran who previously led Rockwell Collins. He starts on Thursday.
The crash also delayed deliveries of new planes to customers, further weakening the iconic American manufacturer’s relationships with airlines and regulators.
Outgoing CEO Dave Calhoun said Boeing is working to eliminate so-called “travel jobs,” in which defective parts of a plane need to be repaired out of sequence before handing the plane over to a customer. Boeing is handling repurchase Spirit AeroSystems, which said the move will allow it to focus more closely on quality.
“We’re stuck in the unknown… We’re replacing doors, like underwear, front doors, cargo doors, electronic/electronic doors,” said one Boeing employee, whose name was redacted from the testimony. “Planes rise every day.”
