Boeing’s Safety Culture Criticized as Inadequate and Confusing

A panel of experts from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), the American aviation authority, have concluded in a report that safety guidelines at Boeing, the American aircraft manufacturer, are “insufficient and confusing”. The report was released on Monday and highlighted several issues within the company’s safety culture.

The report found that there was “a disconnect between Boeing’s senior management and other members of the organization around safety culture.” The panel of experts discovered that there is “a lack of awareness of safety metrics at all levels” within the company. Furthermore, Boeing does not adequately consider the impact of human factors on aviation safety and does not sufficiently incorporate the input of pilots when designing aircraft. These were among the various concerns pointed out in the FAA report.

The report was compiled from over 4,000 pages of internal Boeing documents and included interviews with more than 250 employees. The experts formulated 53 recommendations to improve the safety culture on 27 different points. The aircraft manufacturer has been given a six-month deadline to develop an action plan with concrete steps based on these recommendations.

Boeing has been experiencing a series of quality issues at its factories and at supplier Spirit AeroSystems Holdings. The latest incident involved a detached door panel from an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 aircraft during a flight on January 5. Upon inspection, it was discovered that several bolts were missing from the panel. Further investigations revealed loose bolts on other 737 MAX 9 aircraft as well.

In response to these issues, the FAA has placed additional inspectors at the manufacturer’s factories to supervise the construction of new planes. They have also initiated audits of both Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems. Furthermore, the aviation authority is conducting a separate investigation to determine whether Boeing has failed to ensure its planes are built according to safety standards. Until it is certain that Boeing has quality under control, the company is not allowed by the FAA to increase the production rate of the 737 MAX 9.