CNN
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Boeing should produce inside 90 days a plan to repair critical high quality and questions of safety, the Federal Aviation Administration mentioned on Wednesday.
The company mentioned FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker and Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun held a day-long assembly on Tuesday the place Whitaker made the demand.
That assembly got here the day after a year-long FAA-commissioned probe discovered a “disconnect” between Boeing executives and staff on security and mentioned employees fear reassignment or stalled career growth for reporting questions of safety.
The assembly preceded the anticipated launch of a six-week FAA audit of Boeing’s manufacturing line – an audit spurred by investigators’ discovering that critical bolts were not installed on a Boeing 737 Max 9 door plug that blew open mid-flight.
The FAA mentioned the Boeing plan should deal with weaknesses in implementing the corporate’s Security Administration System, generally known as SMS, in addition to integrating the SMS program with one other high quality program. SMS is a guide which is meant to information staff on procedures they need to observe to insure planes are secure. However the panel mentioned regardless of a wholesale re-write of the guide in recent times, it discovered “many Boeing staff didn’t show information of Boeing’s SMS efforts, nor its objective and procedures.”
The panel that reported on Boeing’s security shortcomings on Monday advisable the corporate deal with these points inside six months; the FAA’s new directive units a quicker timeline.
The ensuing plan from Boeing should result in a “measurable, systemic shift in manufacturing high quality management,” the FAA mentioned.
Boeing has had a historical past of security lapses. The January 5 blowout incident triggered a 19-day emergency grounding of all Max 9s and re-ignited scrutiny of Boeing following the deadly Max 8 crashes of 2018 and 2019.
CNN’s Chris Isidore contributed to this report.
This can be a growing story and will likely be up to date.