© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The fuselage plug area of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 Boeing 737-9 MAX, which was forced to make an emergency landing with a gap in the fuselage, is seen during its investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in Portland,
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -Boeing will add further quality inspections for the 737 MAX after an accident earlier this month where a fuselage panel was blown off an airplane, the head of its commercial airplanes division said Monday.
The planemaker will also deploy a team to supplier Spirit AeroSystems (NYSE:) – which makes and installs the plug door involved in the incident – to check and approve Spirit’s work on the plugs before fuselages are sent to Boeing (NYSE:)’s production facilities in Washington state, Stan Deal, president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said in a letter to Boeing employees.
In addition to the door plug inspections, Boeing teams will conduct checks at 50 other points in Spirit’s production process, Deal said.
Meanwhile, both Boeing and Spirit will open its 737 production facilities to airline customers for carriers to provide their own inspections.
Boeing will also hold sessions for employees on quality management, and bring in an outside party to conduct an independent assessment of its production process, Deal said.
“Everything we do must conform to the requirements in our QMS (quality management system),” Deal wrote. “Anything less is unacceptable. It is through this standard that we must operate to provide our customers and their passengers complete confidence in Boeing airplanes.”