The United States Aviation Regulator Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) announced this Thursday the opening of an investigation into Boeing's quality control, following last week's near- catastrophic incident involving a B737 MAX9 aircraft operated by Alaska Airlines.
"This incident should never have happened and cannot happen again,” the FAA said in a statement, after a panel known as a “door plug” came loose from the fuselage as the plane flew over the western U.S. state of Oregon."
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The Alaska Airlines aircraft successfully performed an emergency landing with no fatalities or serious injuries. Since then, the American regulatory agency has grounded 171 737 MAX 9 planes with the same configuration as the aircraft involved in last Friday's 05 January incident.
The letter from the FAA’s John Piccola continued:
“Your response should contain the root cause of the encountered condition(s), products/articles affected, service impacts, the extent of any immediate/long-term action taken to correct and preclude its recurrence, and any mitigating circumstances which you believe may be relevant”.
The FAA said Thursday it is opening an investigation to determine whether Boeing failed to ensure that finished products met the approved design and were fit for safe operation in accordance with regulations.
Informing the beleaguered aircraft manufacturer of the investigation, the FAA wrote in the letter to Boeing’s VP of Total Quality, Carole Murray, that it believed the aerospace giant ,
“may have failed to ensure its completed products conformed to the approved design and were in a condition for safe operation”.
The FAA has grounded Max 9 jets, including all 65 operated by Alaska and 79 used by United Airlines until Boeing can develop inspection guidelines and planes can be examined. Alaska has canceled all flights by Max 9s through Saturday.
"Boeing’s manufacturing practices must meet the highest safety standards to which they are legally subject,” the FAA added in a statement."
It added that safety, more than speed, would decide the timeline for the 737 MAX to return to flying. Earlier this week, Boeing Chief Executive Dave Calhoun took the company's responsibility for the incident and promised "complete transparency " as the aviation giant tries to emerge from its latest crisis.
Investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board suggest that the part involved in the incident was not properly secured. The FAA is yet to confirm exactly how many aircraft have exit plugs with loose bolts.
Although the full inspection process is still ongoing, both Alaska Airlines and United Airlines have confirmed that during preliminary engineering checks, they had found evidence that securing bolts required tightening, as well as other issues with the hardware.
Hopes of quickly returning grounded aircraft back to service are fading with the FAA setting the stage for a much longer investigation in which MAX-9 jets with exit plugs remain out of service for the duration.
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