The FAA said on Friday that it will immediately increase its oversight of Boeing following the blowout of an exit door plug on an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft during a flight on Jan. 5.
The agency said it will audit the Max 9 production line and Boeing's Max 9 suppliers to evaluate Boeing's compliance with approved quality-control procedures. The results of the analysis will determine whether more audits are necessary.
The FAA will also increase its monitoring of in-service Max 9 events. And the agency said it will consider doing away with its longstanding practice of allowing designated employees within Boeing, under FAA oversight, to issue aircraft airworthiness certificates. That practice, known as delegated authority, is intended to streamline aircraft certification.
But it came under increased scrutiny after oversight failures that factored in the certification of Boeing's 737 Max 8 aircraft despite a fatal flaw in the aircraft's automated flight-control system.
"It is time to re-examine the delegation of authority and assess any associated safety risks," FAA administrator Mike Whitaker said. "The grounding of the 737-9 and the multiple production-related issues identified in recent years require us to look at every option to reduce risk. The FAA is exploring the use of an independent third party to oversee Boeing's inspections and its quality system."
These latest announcements by the FAA came one day after the agency revealed that it had launched an investigation to determine if Boeing failed to ensure that its completed 737 Max 9 airplanes were in a safe condition for operation and that they conformed to their approved designs.
Approximately 171 Max 9 aircraft, the bulk of them operated by Alaska and United, remain grounded following the Jan. 5 incident. The exit door plug blew off Alaska Flight 1282 several minutes after takeoff from Portland, Ore. No one was sitting in the two seats closest to the plug, and the flight was able to descend from its altitude of about 16,000 feet and land back in Portland without casualties.
While investigating the incident early this week, the National Transportation Safety Board discovered that all four bolts were missing from the Alaska door plug, which was recovered from the garden of a Portland-area schoolteacher on Monday morning.
United has also reported that preliminary inspections of grounded Max 9 aircraft turned up what appear to be loose bolts on some emergency exit door plugs. And Alaska said that its technicians have noted visible "loose hardware" on some of its Max 9 planes.
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun said during a Jan. 9 staff meeting that Boeing made a "mistake."