Boeing faces FAA probe of Dreamliner inspections, records

Published 2:15 pm Monday, May 6, 2024

By Julie Johnsson and Allyson Versprille / Bloomberg

Boeing faces a new investigation by U.S. aviation safety regulators tied to inspections of the company’s 787 Dreamliner and whether employees may have falsified records.

Boeing notified the Federal Aviation Administration in April that it may not have completed required inspections of how the 787’s wings join to the airplane’s body, the agency said in a statement Monday.

The inspection lapses don’t create an immediate flight safety issue, but it will disrupt factory operations as Boeing conducts tests on aircraft being assembled, Scott Stocker, who leads the 787 program, told employees in an April 29 memo.

“We promptly informed our regulator about what we learned and are taking swift and serious corrective action with multiple teammates,” he said the memo.

The new probe intensifies scrutiny of the embattled planemaker’s top-selling widebody jet after whistleblowers came forward in recent weeks with concerns about Boeing’s production of the model.

The FAA has also tightened oversight of Boeing’s cash-cow 737 Max assembly lines in response to a January accident in which a fuselage panel blew off a nearly new plane shortly after takeoff. The agency has imposed a cap on the rate of 737 output and ordered the company to create a comprehensive plan to address its quality shortcomings.

Boeing shares fell as much as 2.8% after the news, which was first reported by the Wall Street Journal.