Members of the main U.S. transportation regulator grilled Boeing executives Wednesday over the company\u2019s workplace safety culture and allegations of retaliation linked to two employees who were sidelined over a January mishap involving a Boeing 737 Max 9 in which a door plug detached mid-flight.<\/p>\n
Jennifer Homendy, chair of the National Transportation Safety Board, or NTSB, directed a series of questions to Boeing\u2019s director of quality, Hector Silva, about employee-manager relationships after Boeing stated that \u201ceverybody in the organization\u201d is responsible for safety and that employees are not punished for good faith mistakes. <\/p>\n
\u201cI understand you have an anti-retaliation policy. I also understand that you have a policy for lateral moves.\u201d Homendy said. \u201cSo given that it is not intentional \u2014 and we just talked about how, when there are safety issues and human error, that you should be welcoming people to speak up \u2014 what sort of impression is that giving your employees if you sidelined them and put them in, and I am quoting, \u2018Boeing prison, the cage?\u2019 I\u2019m wondering what message that sends?\u201d<\/p>\n
Silva responded, \u201cI am not directly involved with those employees,\u201d adding, \u201cI do know that in just culture, you need to address good faith mistakes with nonpunitive solutions. I know we always take action to ensure that product safety is protected.\u201d <\/p>\n
Moments after takeoff on Jan. 5, Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California, experienced a rapid decompression when a mid-exit door plug blew off, leaving a gaping hole as passengers clung to their seats and donned oxygen masks while the aircraft made an emergency landing.<\/p>\n
A preliminary report found that four bolts intended to secure the door plug had been missing when the accident occurred. <\/p>\n
Boeing has not publicly identified the two door crew members who may be responsible for having forgotten to reinstall the bolts in September before the plane completed manufacturing at Boeing\u2019s Renton, Washington, plant. <\/p>\n
Silva acknowledged that the error should have been caught, at the latest, \u201cprior to the rollout of the airplane.\u201d<\/p>\n
Sabrina Woods, an NTSB human performance aviation accident investigator, pressed for answers about how the mistake was not caught.<\/p>\n
\u201cBolts were not reinstalled, but one error in a robust system should not be able to progress all the way over to an accident,\u201d Woods said. \u201cIt is in your system. Where should the error have been stopped in its tracks?\u201d <\/p>\n
Boeing execs did not respond.<\/p>\n
Homendy read additional NTSB interview transcripts that noted a Boeing employee told NTSB investigators, \u201cWe got a lot of people that will not, that are not going to speak up because they do, they have been burned by a manager, they have been moved, relocated, pushed out.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou mess up, you get moved,\u201d the worker said in the report. \u201cThree minutes late and then you\u2019re moved.\u201d <\/p>\n
Elizabeth Lund, Boeing\u2019s senior vice president of quality, said during Tuesday\u2019s part of the hearing that there are most likely two workers who made the decision to open the door plug and that, as standard practice in an investigation, the workers were initially removed from airplane production and reassigned to a lateral position in pay, benefits and shifts. They are on administrative leave at their own request, Lund said.<\/p>\n
The workers were placed in a different building where Boeing builds wings, which the NTSB said in a report workers refer to as \u201cBoeing prison,\u201d Homendy said at Tuesday\u2019s hearing.<\/p>\n
Lund said she did not know it was called that. <\/p>\n
Security video of the plane from the plane as it was being manufactured has been rewritten. Boeing officials said the system rewrites video after 30 days.<\/p>\n
Lund also detailed steps Boeing has taken to address safety quality issues. Boeing is working on plug sensor changes that will not allow the door plug to fully close if there are any issues until it is firmly secured. Approved design changes are expected to begin within the year, and Boeing will retrofit the fleet once a design is completed.<\/p>\n
Boeing committed under oath to work with the NTSB without interference on a safety culture survey of Boeing employees.<\/p>\n
Boeing\u2019s new CEO, Kelly Ortberg, assumes his new post Thursday.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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