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Boeing failed to comply with federal regulators’ request for a list of employees who worked on a door panel that exploded during the flight, the top U.S. accident investigator testified to Congress on Wednesday.
Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, told members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation that investigators were seeking the names of 25 people who work on that part of the 737 Max. But Boeing had not yet provided the list, he said, two months after a dangerous accident on an Alaska Airlines flight.
“Boeing did not provide us with documents and information. . . requested numerous times in the last two months,” he said.
“We have the authority to sue and we are not afraid to use it,” he added later. “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to this. But it worries us because we don’t have certain information.”
Boeing said it has “deep respect” for the NTSB and has worked “proactively and transparently” with the agency since the January accident.
“Early in the investigation, we provided the NTSB with the names of Boeing employees, including door specialists, who we believed had relevant information,” the company said. “We have now provided the full list of people on the Door 737 team, in response to a recent request.”
A person familiar with the matter said the NTSB had requested the 25 names over the weekend and Boeing had provided the list on Wednesday, after Homendy’s testimony.
A preliminary NTSB report last month found that the door that exploded at 16,000 feet on an Alaska Airlines flight was missing four bolts intended to secure it in place. The fuselage containing the door panel arrived damaged at Boeing’s Renton, Washington, plant from its supplier, Spirit AeroSystems, forcing workers to open the door cap to make repairs. The bolts were not put back in place.
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun acknowledged in January that the company had made a mistake. In an employee meeting five days after the crash, he said Boeing was working with the NTSB to determine the cause of the crash and promised “100% and complete transparency every step of the way.”
Senator Maria Cantwell said in her opening statement that the NTSB report “implies that Boeing facilities may have significant recordkeeping deficiencies,” and the continued search for documentation related to door panel repairs “raises questions.” on “whether the documents exist”. .
Boeing said that “with respect to documentation, if the removal of the port plug was not documented there would be no documentation to share.”
While the door panel incident caused no injuries among the flight’s 177 passengers and crew, it reignited scrutiny over Boeing’s safety practices, which began after a design flaw on the 737 Max caused two crashes in 2018 and in 2019, killing a total of 346 people.
A panel tasked by Congress with examining Boeing’s safety culture released a report last month calling its safety processes “inadequate and confusing.” Although the company initiated safety programs after the fatal crashes, speakers interviewed many employees who knew little about the scope or procedures of the plane maker’s efforts to improve its safety culture.