Boeing faces over $3 million FAA penalty after 737 Max door-plug blowout

The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is seeking $3.1 million in fines from Boeing for safety violations, including those linked to an incident in which an Alaska Airlines jetliner lost a door plug panel midflight.

The proposed penalty covers violations between September 2023 and February 2024, the agency said on Friday. That period includes the January 2024 blowout of a panelled-over exit door, known as a door plug on an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 shortly after takeoff from Portland, Oregon.

None of the 171 passengers or six crew members were seriously injured, and the pilots landed the plane safely back at Portland.

In June, the National Transportation Safety Board concluded a 17-month investigation, finding that Boeing’s manufacturing lapses and weak safety oversight, combined with ineffective FAA inspections and audits, led to the door plug failure.

The FAA said Friday that it identified hundreds of quality system violations at Boeing’s 737 factory in Renton, Washington, and Boeing subcontractor Spirit AeroSystems’ 737 factory in Wichita, Kansas.

Among other violations, the regulator also found that a Boeing employee pressured a member of Boeing’s ODA unit, which is tasked with performing certain inspections and certifications on the FAA’s behalf, to sign off on a 737 Max airplane “so that Boeing could meet its delivery schedule, even though the ODA member determined the aircraft did not comply with applicable standards.”

Arlington, Virginia-based Boeing has 30 days to respond to the FAA.

In a statement Saturday, Boeing said it is reviewing the agency’s proposed civil penalty, noting that the company put in place a safety and quality plan last year, under FAA oversight, that aims to enhance safety management and quality assurance in its airplane production.

“We regret the January 2024 door-plug accident and continue to work on strengthening our safety culture and improving first-time quality and accountability across our operations,” the company said.

The Max version of Boeing’s bestselling 737 airplane has been the source of persistent troubles for the company since two of the jets crashed, one in Indonesia in 2018 and another in Ethiopia in 2019, killing a combined 346 people.

The Justice Department reached a deal in May allowing Boeing to avoid criminal prosecution for allegedly misleading U.S. regulators about the Max before the two crashes.

Boeing was also in the news in June when a 787 flown by Air India crashed shortly after takeoff and killed at least 270 people. Investigators have not determined what caused that crash, but so far they have not found any flaws with the model, which has a strong safety record.

With inputs from agencies