A dead whistleblower, overwritten videos and now supposedly untraceable documents: the aircraft manufacturer Boeing is falling deeper and deeper into the crisis. The accident investigation agency NTSB is alerted.
Once the reputation is ruined: Hardly a day goes by without some new bad news from Boeing. After the near-accident of an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 9 due to a part of the fuselage being torn out in January, the crisis at the US aircraft manufacturer is becoming increasingly widespread.
Missing documentation at Boeing
It has now become known that the aircraft manufacturer has no documents about the work on the fragment. The accident investigation agency NTSB emphasized yesterday that it still does not know who removed and reattached the fuselage part at the Boeing Renton plant. The company could not find any documentation on this. Boeing boss Dave Calhoun also said that the aircraft manufacturer had no documents about it, wrote NTSB boss Jennifer Homendy in a letter to the US Senate Transportation Committee.
A few days ago, at a hearing in the US Senate, Homendy was ordered to report in writing whether Boeing was providing documents on the work on the fuselage part. In aircraft construction, it is actually common practice to document work steps in detail. According to initial investigations, the NTSB assumes that four fastening bolts on the fuselage part were completely missing. There are indications that the fragment continued to slide up until it broke out on the machine’s 154th flight, explained NTSB chief Homendy.
Video about the accident 737-MAX-9 overwritten
The NTSB had also hoped to learn more about the work on the fuselage section through security camera recordings. Homendy emphasized that the security camera recordings were requested at the time of the work in September. Boeing then announced that these had been overwritten. It is therefore still unclear who worked on the faulty cabin wall, said Homendy. “The absence of these records will complicate the NTSB’s further investigation.”
The company pointed out yesterday that the recordings would automatically be overwritten by new recordings after 30 days – and the machine was in the factory in September and delivered in October.
Machine should be inspected on the same day
Recently, new details about the ill-fated machine had come to light. The “New York Times” reported this week that the machine was scheduled for a safety check that evening of the same day. The background was problems with the cabin pressure system; The airline’s engineers and technicians therefore wanted to take the aircraft out of service and carry out an extensive check.
At the beginning of the week, the New York Times reported on dozens of production problems with the Boeing 737 MAX. During extensive safety tests carried out by the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on the 737 MAX, Boeing failed more than a third of the tests.
Boeing failed 33 of 89 tests
The Airbus rival failed 33 of 89 tests in an investigation into the production process, which was initiated after a cabin wall was torn off during a flight, the newspaper reported. During the comprehensive inspection, Boeing also failed the test that dealt with the door stopper of the ruptured component.
In the incident with a virtually new Boeing 737 MAX 9 from the US airline Alaska Airlines, a fuselage fragment broke off at row 26 shortly after take-off. The more than 170 people on board were largely shocked. But experts also pointed out that, by a lucky coincidence, the two seats near the hole in the fuselage remained empty and the plane was still at a relatively low altitude.
Boeing whistleblower dead
Boeing’s production quality has been questioned by experts for years. Among the critics was John Barnett, who worked at Boeing as a quality manager before leaving the company in 2017. Since then, he has shared his concerns with journalists about what he sees as inadequate conditions in the production of Boeing aircraft.
The former Boeing manager was found dead on Tuesday. The 62-year-old Barnett probably killed himself in front of a hotel in the state of South Carolina, the police in Charleston said, citing “the worldwide attention” that the whistleblower had attracted.