Emergencies involving Boeing airliners trigger corrective actions

March 15 (UPI) -- Boeing, a global leader in aviation, has had a bad week.

Three Boeing passenger airliners experienced emergencies -- during a takeoff, a landing and in-flight -- as the company is being investigated for a blown out door plug during a January flight that has raised concerns over safety in the manufacturing process.

Still, U.S. Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg said this week there is no reason for travelers to be concerned about flying commercial airliners made by any manufacturer.

"American aviation is the safest means of travel in the world," Buttigieg told reporters Monday.

Boeing officials, likewise, say the company's aircraft are as safe as any.

Recent incidents

Boeing aircraft have been involved in several headline-generating mishaps, but none caused fatalities. Recent emergencies involving Boeing aircraft include:

• A door plug falling from a Boeing 737-9 MAX aircraft shortly after Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 departed Portland, Ore., on Jan. 5.
• "Stuck" rudder pedals upon landing at the Newark Liberty International Airport in New Jersey on United Airlines Flight 1539's Boeing 737-8 MAX airliner on Feb. 6.
• A tire falling from United Airlines Flight 35's Boeing 777-200 while taking off from San Francisco International Airport on March 7.
• A "technical event" about two hours after takeoff caused LATAM Airlines Flight LA800's Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner to suddenly drop about 300 feet, which injured dozens, hospitalized 12 and forced an emergency landing in New Zealand for the flight from Sydney, Australia, to Santiago, Chile, on Monday.
• A "blown tire" on American Airlines Flight 345's Boeing 777 prior to landing safely at Los Angeles International Airport on Wednesday.

The aircraft mishaps aren't necessarily an issue with Boeing and are affected by the ways in which respective airlines inspect and maintain their aircraft. The door plug failure, though, caused the Federal Aviation Administration to temporarily ground all Boeing 737-9 MAX aircraft while the agency and the National Transportation Safety Board investigated the issue.

The NTSB has scheduled a hearing for Aug. 6 and 7 on the probe. Investigators said the door plug lacked bolts needed to secure it in place after airline workers removed it and put it back.

Boeing officials said the company has since instituted new inspections for the door plug assembly and similar parts at the factory where they are built and on Boeing's production line. Boeing also added signage and updated the protocol for documenting when a door plug is opened or removed to ensure its reinstalled and inspected.

Design changes

Following the FAA's investigation into the door plug failure, the federal agency issued an airworthiness directive to "address the unsafe conditions that led to the grounding of Boeing 737 MAX" aircraft. The directive requires Boeing to make four design changes to the model.

• Install new flight control software to prevent erroneous activation of the aircraft's maneuvering characteristics augmentation system. The MCAS software improves the aircraft's handling and decreases its tendency to pitch upward, depending on the angle of the oncoming wind, according to Boeing.

• Install an updated cockpit display system that alerts pilots when there is a disagreement or a malfunction with the plane's two sensors that measure the angle of attack from oncoming wind. The FAA also is requiring airlines to test the sensors on the ground and in a flight test before returning each aircraft to service.

• Create new operating procedures and revise existing ones in the MAX aircraft's flight manuals, so flight crews can recognize and respond to erroneous stabilizer movements and the potential failure of a sensor for the wind's angle of attack.

• Change the routing for the horizontal stabilizer's trim wires to comply with the agency's wire-separation safety standards.

Federal investigations

FAA investigators also recently spent six weeks auditing Boeing and components-supplier Spirit AeroSystems. The agency announced audit results on March 4, which found 33 audit failures due to 97 instances of noncompliance. Boeing and Spirit passed 56 of the FAA compliance audits.

A separate expert review panel conducted in 2023 of Boeing's safety management system recently produced a 50-page report of the results. The results say the safety procedures meet global aviation industry standards, but the procedures are too complicated and Boeing changes them too often.

The FAA in February gave Boeing officials 90 days to produce a plan to improve quality- control procedures. Boeing says much of that can be accomplished by ensuring current safety procedures are followed while new ones are developed.

"By virtue of our quality stand-downs, the FAA audit findings and the recent expert review panel report, we have a clear picture of what needs to be done," Boeing President and CEO Dave Calhoun said in a Feb. 28 statement.

"Boeing will develop the comprehensive action plan with measurable criteria that demonstrates the profound change that [FAA] administrator [Michael] Whitaker and the FAA demand."

Boeing's plan of action

The CEO of Boeing's commercial airplanes unit on Tuesday told employees the company has added "layers of inspection" and "has taken prompt action" to ensure compliance with its safety measures during aircraft production and while preparing an action plan to present to the FAA.

"We have used your feedback and those from our customers to take immediate actions to strengthen our safety and quality," Stan Deal, Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO, said. "These actions are central to a comprehensive plan we will soon deliver to the FAA."

Although Boeing is working to compile an action plan for the FAA, Deal said its teams "are working to simplify and streamline the panel's recommendations."

In the meantime, he said Boeing employees can improve safety and quality by precisely following each step in the company's manufacturing processes and procedures. The steps are designed to ensure each aircraft meets regulatory requirements but will be revised to improve their effectiveness.

Deal also said Boeing employees should watch for any safety hazards or problems with quality control and report them so the company can address them right away.

Other recent actions by Boeing include implementing more inspections of the Spirit AeroSystems manufacturing facility in Wichita, Kan., to ensure only quality fuselages are shipped to the Boeing manufacturing plant in Renton, Wash.

Boeing also is conducting safety reviews of the production process and will create mitigation plans to prevent recurrences of the door plug mishap and other issues.

Boeing has its global headquarters in Arlington, Va., and says it the world's largest aerospace company and the leading manufacturer of commercial airlines.

The company says it built more than 10,000 commercial jetliners that are flying passengers and cargo around the globe and has orders for more than 5,700 more.