Boeing criminal investigation expands to include subpoenas and grand jury

The Justice Department is sending subpoenas and using a recently convened grand jury in Seattle as it broadens a criminal investigation into the door plug that blew off a Boeing 737 Max 9 plane in January, a person familiar with the matter said Friday.

The separation of the fuselage panel from an Alaska Airlines flight shortly after takeoff scared passengers at 16,000 feet and required an emergency landing at Portland International Airport in Oregon. According to a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board, four bolts intended to hold the door plug in place before the panel blew off were missing.

This month it was reported that the Justice Department had opened a criminal investigation into Boeing, which reinstalled the door plug during maintenance in Renton, Washington, before the plane was delivered to Alaska Airlines in October.

The subpoenas and use of the grand jury were reported earlier Friday by Bloomberg.

The Jan. 5 mid-air incident led the Federal Aviation Administration to ground more than 170 Max 9 planes, which were then inspected for construction defects. Boeing said it agreed with the FAA’s decision and promised to cooperate. The company has said safety is its top priority.

The Max 9s have since resumed flights, but questions remain about the malfunction. A grand jury could be asked to decide whether a criminal charge is warranted. A likely focus would be on repairs to the Alaska Airlines plane’s rivets, which are often used to connect and secure aircraft parts, by workers at Boeing’s Renton plant.

The episode has brought Boeing under renewed scrutiny. The company made grim headlines in 2018 and 2019 when two crashes of another 737 model, the Max 8, killed 346 people. A maximum of 8 aircraft were grounded for almost two years. The company subsequently spent more than $2.5 billion to settle a criminal charge that Boeing had defrauded the FAA, and the company’s CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, was fired.

Under his replacement, Dave Calhoun, Boeing’s shares have risen even as the company struggles to meet airline demands. Production of the 737 Max fell to about half of Boeing’s targets last year as the company was plagued by supply chain issues with key suppliers and problems with fuselages.

Now the company is facing much bigger challenges. Two days after the door plug incident, Mr. Calhoun sent a memo to employees stating that “while we have made progress in recent years in strengthening our safety management and quality control systems and processes, situations like this remind us that we must be focused continue to improve every day.”