More issues have arisen for Boeing after a whistleblower told the Seattle Times that the company failed to properly reinstall the fuselage panel that blew off Alaska Airlines flight 1282.
Boeing has ordered a quality stand down for its employees at its Renton factory where the 737-9 MAX is made.
On Thursday, all employees will participate in workshops focused on quality.
“There’s something systemic going on with Boeing commercial airplanes and I’m not sure that one day confined to one factory is going to get you anywhere, I just don’t know,” Scott Hamilton, an aviation consultant for Leeham Company, said. “Boeing had its fingers on the airplane last, it’s Boeing’s name on the side of the airplane, it’s Boeing’s certification for the MAX and it’s Boeing’s responsibility to declare each airplane, airworthy before it’s delivered to the customer.”
He believes that if the NTSB confirms what the whistleblower said, Boeing would be held primarily responsible for what happened.
“In the end, Boeing is in my view going to be tagged with the principal responsibility but the root cause appears, according to this whistleblower, to trace back to Spirit AeroSpace Systems,” Hamilton said.
Boeing and Alaska Airlines are facing a class action lawsuit from some passengers who were on board that flight. Daniel Laurence is one of the lead attorneys on the case and said, at this point, they won’t be adding Spirit AeroSpace Systems to the suit but that could change.
“If Boeing wants to point the finger at Spirit it can do that and if that happens we might need to join Spirit simply to preserve our rights but not necessary at this point,” Laurence said.
The NTSB said it will be on-site at the facility in Renton on Friday and investigators will build a timeline from the early stages of the door plug all the way to the flight.
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