By David Shepardson, Alison Lambert, Abhijith Ganapavaram, and Tim Heffer
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. National Transportation Safety Board on Tuesday questioned key witnesses from Boeing Co, Spirit Aerosystems Inc and the Federal Aviation Administration about an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 passenger cabin panel exploding in flight in January.
At the start of the two-day investigative hearings, the committee released 3,800 pages of factual reports and interviews related to the ongoing investigation.
The incident has severely damaged Boeing’s reputation and led to the Max 9 being grounded for two weeks, the FAA imposing a production ban, a criminal investigation and the departure of several top executives. Boeing has pledged to make major quality improvements.
Elizabeth Lund, Boeing’s senior vice president of quality, and Doug Ackerman, Boeing’s vice president of supplier quality, will testify Tuesday during hearings scheduled to last 20 hours over two days.
Boeing is still building “in the 20s” of Max planes per month — far fewer than the 38 it is allowed to produce per month, Lund said Tuesday. “We’re working our way back up,” Lund told the NTSB. “But at one point I think we were at a low of eight.”
A flight attendant described the terrifying moment she went through when the door seal blew off. “Then suddenly we heard a loud bang and a huge roar of air as if the door had suddenly opened. The masks fell off and I saw the curtain of the galley being pulled towards the cabin,” she said.
Terry George, senior vice president and general manager of Boeing programs at Spirit Aerosystems, and Scott Grabbon, senior director of 737 quality at Spirit, which builds the Max’s airframe, also testified Tuesday.
Last month, Boeing agreed to buy back Spirit Aerosystems, which spun off its core manufacturing plants in 2005, for $4.7 billion in stock.
The session will review issues including 737 manufacturing and inspections, safety management and quality management systems, FAA oversight, and issues surrounding door seal opening and closing.
“Don’t interfere too much”
Boeing said it had no paperwork to prove the four missing bolts were removed. Lund said Boeing now places a bright blue and yellow label on the door seal when it arrives at the factory that reads in large letters “DO NOT OPEN” and repeats “to ensure the seal is not accidentally opened.”
In June, FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said the agency had been “not lax” in its oversight of Boeing before January. FAA employees told the NTSB that Boeing employees had not always followed required procedures.
Jonathan Arnold, an FAA safety inspector, said one of the systemic problems he saw at the Boeing plant was employees not following instructions.
“It seems to be a systematic thing where they deviate from their instructions. And usually the tool control is what I see the most,” Arnold said.
The interviews also addressed questions about factory culture, which has been the subject of criticism in congressional hearings. Whistleblowers have alleged that Boeing retaliated against people who raised safety concerns at the plant.
Boeing’s former quality chief Carol Murray has revealed that the company was under pressure from regulators to simplify its processes, likening their complexity to a “fireworks display.”
“If you lay out our documentation now, it looks like a fireworks display, and we’ve been told by regulators and our teams that our processes are complex,” she told the NTSB. “It’s going to take a lot of effort to change that because it’s so intertwined.”
Also in June, the NTSB said Boeing violated investigation rules when Lund provided non-public information to the media and speculated about possible causes.
Last month, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to a charge of criminal fraud conspiracy and pay a fine of at least $243.6 million to resolve the Justice Department’s investigation into two 737 Max crashes.