Boeing says it's changing type of panel that blew off Alaska Airlines jet

Washington: Boeing officials told regulators Tuesday that the aircraft maker would make changes to how it designed and produced the type of panel that blew off an Alaska Airlines jet shortly after takeoff in January.

Boeing told regulators that it was redesigning its door plugs -- the panels that replace emergency-exit doors in certain design configurations that create more seats -- so that its warning systems could detect any malfunctions.

The design changes are expected to be "implemented within the year," said Elizabeth Lund, a senior vice president for quality at Boeing, who testified on Tuesday at an investigative hearing held by the National Transportation Safety Board, an independent government investigative agency.

The hearing Tuesday revealed that Boeing employees removed a door plug from what would later be the Alaska Airlines jet to repair damaged rivets, but without any required internal authorization or paperwork detailing the removal of the panel -- a critical structural element. The safety board's investigation found earlier this year that the plane, a 737 Max 9, left the Boeing factory in Renton, Washington, missing bolts that should have held in place the door plug that blew off midair.

The safety board's chair, Jennifer Homendy, suggested at the hearing that the work culture at Boeing prioritized meeting production schedules over safety standards, and led to an overtaxed workforce and lapses in the production process.

On Tuesday, Homendy read quotes from the board's interviews with mechanics who have worked at the Boeing facility for years. The workers testified to board investigators that they were regularly pressured into working 10 to 12 hours a day, six to seven days a week, Homendy said.

At Boeing's Renton factory, the contractors from Spirit AeroSystems, a Boeing supplier that makes 737 Max fuselages, pointed to constant tension between Spirit workers and Boeing mechanics.

"Basically, we're the cockroaches of the factory," one of the Spirit contractors told a board investigator in March.

Lund, the Boeing vice president, acknowledged the problems but said her company was "working hard" to implement changes in culture and safety protocols that would help employees and contractors not feel as if they have to sacrifice quality or safety because of pressures over on-time performance.

"It is concerning," Lund said. "There is no doubt about it."

The board's two-day investigative hearing began Tuesday, focusing on how the door plug blew off at an altitude of about 16,000 feet, exposing passengers to forceful winds.

The hearing follows fresh criticism from the independent agency that resulted in the revoking of Boeing's access to investigative information.

During a news media event in Renton in June, Lund updated reporters on the investigation into the door plug episode and improvements the company had been making.

When the safety board learned of Lund's comments, however, it quickly chided Boeing. The agency said the company had improperly disclosed investigative information and speculated about the cause of the episode, saying that Boeing had "blatantly violated" the rules for active investigations.

The board informed the Justice Department, which was also looking into possible rule violations by Boeing over the January flight.

The episode on the Alaska Airlines flight out of Portland, Oregon, resulted in no major injuries, but it raised new concerns about the quality of Boeing's planes more than five years after two fatal crashes of 737 Max planes involving their automated maneuvering systems. After the January episode with the door panel, the Federal Aviation Administration prohibited Boeing from increasing 737 production until it addressed quality issues. Mike Whitaker, the FAA administrator, acknowledged during a congressional hearing that his agency had been "too hands-off" in its oversight of Boeing before the Alaska Airlines panel blew off.

A key issue during the hearing Tuesday was the lack of documentation surrounding the removal and reinstallation of the door plug. Boeing has said that no documents are available to verify the removal of the bolts. While there is documentation to show that the panel was removed to repair rivets on the plane, there is no record of whether that same panel was reinstalled once the work was finished.

The Justice Department is still investigating the company over the episode. As the federal investigations into the door plugs continue, Boeing has reached a plea deal with the department after violating a deferred prosecution tied to the 2018 and 2019 Boeing Max crashes, which killed nearly 350 people.

In 2021, Boeing and the Justice Department struck a deal over the two crashes that helped the company avoid criminal charges. But this year, federal prosecutors said Boeing had not adhered to that deal, so they came up with a new one that has been tentatively agreed upon.

Under the latest plan, Boeing would plead guilty to conspiring to defraud the federal government. The company would also bring in an independent monitor, be on probation for three years and face extra financial penalties.

That includes a $487.2 million fine, though half of that could be forgiven because of fines the company has already paid. The deal is not official, pending approval by a federal judge later this month.

Last month, Boeing announced that it planned to repurchase Spirit AeroSystems for $4.7 billion in stock, having previously spun off its core plants in 2005. Spirit made the panel that blew off the Alaska Airlines plane in January.