FAA audit of Boeing’s 737 Max production revealed dozens of problems

A six-week Federal Aviation Administration audit of Boeing’s production of the 737 Max plane revealed dozens of problems in the production process at the planemaker and one of its key suppliers, according to a slide presentation reviewed by The New York Times.

The air safety regulator launched the investigation after a door panel blew off a 737 Max 9 during an Alaska Airlines flight in early January. Last week, the agency announced that the audit found “multiple instances” in which Boeing and its supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, failed to meet quality control requirements, although it did not provide details of the findings.

The presentation reviewed by The Times, while highly technical, offers a more detailed view of what the audit yielded. Since the Alaska Airlines episode, Boeing has come under intense scrutiny over its quality control practices, and the findings add to the body of evidence about manufacturing defects at the company.

For the part of the investigation focused on Boeing, the FAA conducted 89 product audits, a type of assessment that looks at aspects of the production process. The aircraft maker passed 56 of the audits and failed 33 of them, with a total of 97 cases of alleged non-compliance, the presentation said.

The FAA also conducted 13 product audits for the portion of the investigation that focused on Spirit AeroSystems, which makes the fuselage or body of the 737 Max. Six of those audits resulted in passing grades, and seven in failing grades, according to the presentation.

At one point during the investigation, the air safety agency observed technicians at Spirit using a hotel key card to check the door seal, according to a document detailing some of the findings. That action was “not identified/documented/called out in the production order,” the document said.

In another instance, the FAA observed Spirit technicians applying liquid Dawn soap to a door seal “as a lubricant during the installation process,” the document said. The door seal was then cleaned with a wet cheesecloth, the document said, noting that the instructions were “vague and unclear as to what specifications/actions should be followed or recorded by the technician.”

Asked about the appropriateness of using a hotel key card or Dawn soap in such situations, a Spirit spokesperson, Joe Buccino, said the company was “reviewing all identified nonconformities for corrective action.”

Boeing did not immediately comment on the results of the audit. In late February, the FAA gave the company 90 days to develop a plan for quality control improvements. In response, CEO Dave Calhoun said that “we have a clear view of what needs to be done,” citing in part the audit findings.

Boeing said this month it was in talks to acquire Spirit, which it spawned in 2005. Mr. Buccino said Monday that Spirit had received preliminary audit findings from the FAA and planned to work with Boeing to address what the regulator had raised. He said Spirit’s goal was to reduce the number of defects and errors in its processes to zero.

“In the meantime, we are continuing multiple efforts to improve our safety and quality programs,” said Mr. Buccino. “These improvements focus on human factors and other steps to minimize non-conformances.”

The FAA said it could not release details of the audit because of the ongoing investigation into Boeing following the Alaska Airlines episode. In addition to that investigation, the National Transportation Safety Board is investigating what caused the door panel to blow off the plane, and the Justice Department has launched a criminal investigation.

During the FAA’s investigation, the FAA deployed as many as 20 auditors to Boeing and about half a dozen to Spirit, according to the slide presentation. Boeing assembles the 737 Max at its factory in Renton, Washington, while Spirit builds the aircraft’s fuselage at its factory in Wichita, Kan.

The audit at Boeing was broad and covered many parts of the 737 Max, including the wings and an assortment of other systems.

Many of the problems found by auditors fell into the category of not following an “approved manufacturing process, procedure or instruction,” the presentation said. Some other issues related to quality control documentation.

One audit involved the part that blew the Alaska Airlines plane, known as a door plug. According to the presentation, Boeing failed to do so. Some of the issues uncovered in that audit related to inspection and quality control documentation, although the exact findings were not detailed in the presentation.

The FAA’s investigation also examined how well Boeing employees understood the company’s quality control processes. The agency interviewed six business engineers and scored their responses, and the overall average score came to just 58 percent.

An audit at Spirit that focused on the door plug component revealed five issues. One of those issues, the presentation said, was Boeing’s “failure to provide evidence of approval of minor design changes in a method acceptable to the FAA.” It was not clear from the presentation what the design change was.

Another audit involved the door plug installation, and it was one of the audits where Spirit failed. The audit raised concerns about the Spirit technicians who performed the work and found that the company “failed to establish the knowledge necessary to operate its processes.”

Other audits where Spirit failed included one involving a cargo door and another involving the installation of cockpit windows.