Boeing needs more focus on safety and quality, FAA chief says

Boeing Co. needs to shift its focus from the business of making planes toward safety in the wake of recent findings on lapses surrounding the January failure of a fuselage panel, the top US aviation regulator said. 

Federal Aviation Administration chief Michael Whitaker told NBC Nightly News that his impressions from a recent visit to the manufacturer’s facilities was that “there are issues around the safety culture at Boeing,” according to interview excerpts released by the network. 

“Their priorities have been on production, and not on safety and quality,” Whitaker said in the interview scheduled to air Tuesday evening. “What we really are focused on now, is shifting that focus, from production to safety and quality.”

The concerns were triggered by the Jan. 5 failure of a panel covering an unused door during an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 flight near Portland, Oregon. The failure prompted an explosive decompression and emergency landing. 

Boeing has come under intense scrutiny since the accident and as multiple reviews detailed problems with the planemaker’s safety culture and quality practices. 

The panel on the jet delivered last October was apparently installed without four bolts designed to hold it in place, according to preliminary findings by the National Transportation Safety Board. 

Boeing had no immediate comment on Whitaker’s remarks.