SEATTLE – He Justice Department launched a investigation penal about the detachment of a panel on an airplane Boeing in full flight Alaska Airlines in January, the newspaper reported on Saturday Wall Street Journal.
Citing documents and people familiar with the matter, the newspaper reported that investigators have contacted some passengers and crew, including pilots and flight attendants, who were on the aircraft at the time of the Jan. 5 incident.
The detachment in the plane Boeing used by Alaska Airlines occurred seven minutes after taking off from Portland, Oregon, forcing the pilots to make an emergency landing. Boeing has been under increasing scrutiny since the incident, when one of the panels covering the space left for an additional emergency door became detached from a Max 9 jet plane. There were no serious injuries.
“In a situation like this, it is normal for the Department of Justice to conduct an investigation,” Alaska Airlines said in a prepared statement. “We are cooperating fully and do not believe we are the subject of an investigation.”
Boeing declined to comment. The Justice Department has not yet responded to a request for comment.
The newspaper noted that the investigation will contribute to the department’s review to determine whether Boeing complied with a previous agreement that resolved a federal investigation into the safety of its 737 Max plane after two deadly plane crashes, which occurred in 2018 and 2019.
In 2021, Boeing had agreed to pay $2.5 billion, including a $244 million fine, to resolve an investigation into accidents on flights operated by Lion Air and Etopian Airlines. The company also blamed two employees of misleading regulators about failures in the flight control system.
Boeing acknowledged in a letter to the Congress that he could not find records of work done on the door panel of the Alaska Airlines plane.
The company asserted that its “working hypothesis” was that records about panel removal and reinstallation at the 737 MAX final assembly line in Renton, Washington, were never created, even though Boeing systems require it.
In a preliminary report filed last month, the NTSB said four bolts that helped hold the door in place were missing after the panel was removed, so workers were able to repair the damaged rivets in September. The repair of the rivets was performed by contractors working for Spirit AeroSystems, a Boeing supplier, but the NTSB does not yet know who removed and reinstalled the door panel, Jennifer Homendy, chairwoman of the National Safety Board, said Wednesday. Transportation Safety.
Recently, the Federal Aviation Administration gave Boeing 90 days to indicate how it will respond to the problems of QA raised by the organization and a panel of industry and government experts. The panel found problems in Boeing’s safety culture despite improvements made after two Max 8 planes crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people.
Source: With information from AP
