National Transportation Safety Board chairwoman Jennifer Homendy told the Senate Commerce Committee on Wednesday that Boeing had not provided crucial information needed to fully conduct the investigation into the Jan. 5 blowout of a door plug on a Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft flown by Alaska Airlines.
The door plug blew out because their were no bolts to secure it. In February, the NTSB said bolts likely were not reinstalled after work was done on the plug last September at Boeing's factory in Renton, Wash.
Homendy said Wednesday that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) has been cooperative, but that Boeing "has not provided us with the documents and information that we have requested numerous times over the past few months, specifically with respect to opening, closing and removal of the door, and the team that does that work at the Renton facility."
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) asked, "Even two months later you still do not know who actually opened the door plug?"
"That's correct, Senator, we don't know, and it's not for lack of trying," Homendy responded, adding that the investigation team knows there is a manager and 25 other individuals who deal with the doors in the facility in Renton, Wash. NTSB could not interview the manager because that person has been on medical leave.
"We've asked for the names of the other 25 people and have not received the names," Homendy said. "We asked for the records with respect to what occurred. We've asked for what shift it occurred on. … It's absurd that two months later we don't have that."
At that point, Cruz requested that the NTSB respond in writing one week from March 6 whether or not Boeing has cooperated, "and I expect you to have that list of 25 names," he said.
Committee chair Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.) asked if the NTSB was able to get from Boeing what specific procedures they have for "identifying, storing, protecting, retrieving and retaining quality records. Were they forthcoming on that?" she asked.
Homendy responded that "we have not received that information."
Later Wednesday afternoon, Boeing released a statement that said it now had provided the NTSB with the "full list of individuals on the 737 door team."
Boeing added that "with respect to documentation, if the door plug removal was undocumented there would be no documentation to share. We will continue to cooperate fully and transparently with the NTSB's investigation."
Homendy added that the NTSB also was investigating the Spirit AeroSystems employees who did work on the rivets, but they don't know who did the work on the door plug. Spirit AeroSystems manufactured the fuselage. Further, the NTSB learned that three of the Spirit AeroSystems employees aren't employees but are contractors from "three different entities," Homendy said. "That information was told to us through the individuals who were being interviewed that contacted us directly. … We have engaged our attorney on this matter."
Cruz said, "That is utterly unacceptable."
On Monday, the FAA found in its audit of the Jan. 5 incident "multiple instances" where Boeing and Spirit AeroSystems "allegedly failed to comply with manufacturing quality-control requirements."
After a Feb. 27 meeting, FAA administrator Mike Whitaker told Boeing CEO David Calhoun the company had 90 days to come up with an outline for its action plan to fix systemic quality-control issues.