The Federal Aviation Administration is seeking $3.1 million in fines from Boeing over safety violations, including ones related to an Alaska Airlines jetliner losing a door plug panel on its fuselage in midflight.
The proposed penalty is for safety violations that occurred from September 2023 through February 2024, the FAA said Friday.
That period includes the January 2024 blowout of a paneled-over exit door — called a door plug —- on an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 shortly after it took off from Portland, Oregon.
In June, the National Transportation Safety Board said its 17-month long investigation found that lapses in Boeing’s manufacturing and safety oversight, combined with ineffective inspections and audits by the FAA, led to the door plug blowout.
The FAA said Friday that it identified hundreds of quality system violations at Boeing’s 737 factory in Renton, Washington, and Boeing subcontractor Spirit AeroSystems’ 737 factory in Wichita, Kansas.
Boeing is being sued by the Federal Aviation Administration for $3.11 million in safety violations, including the loss of a door plug panel on the fuselage of an Alaska Airlines aircraft while it was in midair.
According to the FAA on Friday, the proposed penalty is for safety violations that took place between September 2023 and February 2024.
The January 2024 blowout of a paneled-over exit door, also known as a door plug, on an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 just after takeoff from Portland, Oregon, falls within that time frame.
There were no serious injuries to any of the flight’s six crew members or 171 passengers. The plane was safely landed at the airport by the pilots.
The National Transportation Safety Board announced in June that its 17-month investigation had concluded that the door plug blowout was caused by a combination of shortcomings in Boeing’s manufacturing and safety oversight, as well as inefficient FAA inspections and audits.
Boeing’s 737 factory in Renton, Washington, and Spirit AeroSystems’ 737 factory in Wichita, Kansas, both have hundreds of quality system violations, the FAA announced Friday.
A Boeing employee allegedly coerced a member of the company’s ODA unit, which is responsible for carrying out specific inspections and certifications on behalf of the FAA, to approve a 737 Max aircraft “so that Boeing could meet its delivery schedule, even though the ODA member determined the aircraft did not comply with applicable standards,” among other infractions, the regulator discovered. “.”.
The FAA has given Boeing, based in Arlington, Virginia, 30 days to reply.
Boeing said in a statement on Saturday that it is examining the agency’s proposed civil penalty, adding that the company implemented a safety and quality plan last year, overseen by the FAA, to improve safety management and quality assurance in the manufacture of airplanes.
The company stated, “We continue to work on strengthening our safety culture and improving first-time quality and accountability across our operations, and we regret the door-plug accident that occurred in January 2024.”.
Since two of the aircraft crashed, one in Ethiopia in 2019 and one in Indonesia in 2018, killing a total of 346 people, Boeing’s 737 Max model has been the company’s ongoing source of problems.
A settlement reached by the Justice Department in May spared Boeing from criminal prosecution for allegedly deceiving the U.S. A. prior to the two crashes, regulators regarding the Max.
