Agencies
Boeing said on Tuesday it plans to make design changes to prevent a future mid-air cabin panel blowout like the one in an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 flight in January that spun the planemaker into its second major crisis in recent years. The National Transportation Safety Board and Boeing said they still have not determined who removed and reinstalled that plane’s door plug during production.
NTSB completed the first of two days of hearings Tuesday that lasted nearly 10 hours into the mid-air emergency that badly damaged Boeing’s reputation, led to the MAX 9 grounding for two weeks, a ban by the Federal Aviation Administration on expanding production, a criminal investigation and the departure of several key executives. Boeing’s senior vice president for quality, Elizabeth Lund, told the hearing the planemaker is working on design changes that it hopes to implement within the year and then to retrofit across the fleet to prevent a future incident.
"They are working on some design changes that will allow the door plug to not be closed if there’s any issue until it’s firmly secured,” Lund said. Investigators have said the door plug in the new Alaska MAX 9 was missing four key bolts. The hearings are reviewing key issues, including 737 manufacturing and inspections, safety management and quality management systems, FAA oversight, and issues surrounding the opening and closing of the door plug.
Boeing, which has vowed to make key quality improvements, faced extensive questions at the hearing about the production of the accident-hit MAX 9 and lack of paperwork documenting the removal of the door plug. NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy on Tuesday criticized the planemaker’s safety practices and said it must take steps to improve. "The safety culture needs a lot of work,” Homendy said.
The NTSB will turn its attention on Wednesday to the FAA’s oversight of Boeing, Homendy said.