WASHINGTON – Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is launching a congressional oversight inquiry into the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and Boeing, an engineering company that receives billions of taxpayer dollars annually. In letters this week, Grassley scrutinized decades of poor documentation and inadequate safety practices at Boeing. He first called out the engineering giant in 1996 after a flight explosion killed 230 passengers; now, he’s honing in on the January 5, 2024 incident in which a Boeing 737 door panel came off mid-flight, as well as various audits, testimony and report findings since.

“[Boeing and FAA] must explain how this happened and what is being done to ensure that it does not place the lives of Americans at risk again,” Grassley wrote, in part. “Boeing is given great responsibility to build the planes that Americans rely on every day and the FAA is entrusted to ensure they do it safely. Boeing’s track record, as well as recent reports, demonstrate that aircraft safety has not been the paramount concern and the FAA has provided insufficient oversight to ensure that it is.”

Between Boeing and FAA, Grassley asked a collective 38 questions, requesting records of safety procedures, regulatory requirements, corrective actions, whistleblower protections and more. Note, Boeing was due to respond to the Department of Justice (DOJ) yesterday, June 13, regarding its failure to “make promised changes to detect and prevent violations of federal anti-fraud laws” – Boeing committed to doing so upon settling a case with DOJ on two fatal 737 aircraft crashes (2018 and 2019 below), which allowed the company to avoid criminal prosecution for misleading the federal regulators who approved the defective planes.

Download Grassley’s letters to Boeing and FAA at the corresponding links.

Summary of Grassley’s Key Points:

  • Boeing’s quality and oversight practices are questionable, at best. A National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) preliminary report on the Jan. 5 incident reveals a dearth of required documentation – this falls on both the NTSB, which is charged with document collection, and Boeing, which is charged with document generation. Additional evidence indicates Boeing employees have falsified aircraft inspection records in instances the inspections were not conducted.
  • Boeing must improve cooperation, transparency. Boeing has demonstrated resistance to federal investigations since the Jan. 5 incident. It initially refused to provide the names of personnel who would have been familiar with the door plug repair problems.
  • Boeing and federal agencies have unacceptably allowed “dozens” of manufacturing and quality-control requirements to persist, unchecked. Per a recent FAA audit of Boeing and its supplier: “Boeing passed 56 audits, failed 33, and demonstrated 97 instances of noncompliance.”
  • Whistleblowers are vital to protecting the public. Several recent instances at Boeing have uncovered a “disturbing pattern of brave whistleblowers facing retaliation,” when they should be praised for pointing out potentially deadly flaws.

Examples of Whistleblower Claims, Retaliation:

  • Former quality inspector at Boeing’s supplier raised concerns about misdrilled holes on a section of the 737 Max necessary for maintaining cabin pressure during flight. The whistleblower was laid off and ultimately fired.
  • Two Boeing employees representing FAA insisted the company re-evaluate its engineering work on 777 and 787 jets. Per a union unfair labor practice complaint, both whistleblowers received identical negative evaluations following their disclosures. FAA has since opened an investigation, although two years after-the-fact.
  • A Boeing quality control manager raised concerns about an aircraft assembled in South Carolina. The 30-year Boeing veteran disclosed the facility was deliberately installing substandard parts and prioritizing production pace over procedures intended to track components through the factory, leading to defective components going missing. He died by suicide earlier this year.

Overview of Boeing’s ‘History of Aircraft Disasters:’

  • January 5, 2024: The door panel of a Boeing 737 Max aircraft came off midflight on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282. Seven passengers and one flight attendant sustained minor injuries as a result of the door panel flying off at 16,000 feet. Had this happened at cruising altitude, the results might have been catastrophic.
  • March 10, 2019: A Boeing 737 crashed in Ethiopia. A later investigation showed the problematic flight control feature caused the crash, though Boeing had “downplayed its significance and even removed information about it from the manual…”
  • October 29, 2018: A Boeing 737 crashed near Indonesia. This and the March 10, 2019 crash were responsible for a combined 346 fatalities.
  • July 17, 1996: A Boeing 747 exploded over the Atlantic, killing all 230 people on board.

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