‘Lack of awareness’ of safety guidelines at Boeing: FAA report

After a series of high-profile incidents, an FAA panel says it couldn't find evidence Boeing has a 'foundational commitment to safety' matching the company's stated goals.

Boeing is not as committed to safety as it claims it is, an FAA report concluded.

An investigation by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration “observed documentation, survey responses, and employee interviews that did not provide objective evidence of a foundational commitment to safety that matched Boeing’s descriptions of that objective.”

The agency launched the investigation in March 2023 after fatal crashes of Boeing 787 MAX-8 planes flown by Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines in 2018 and 2019 but before a door plug flew off a 737 MAX-9 Alaska Airlines plane in January and United Airlines found loose bolts on other MAX-9s.

The report said the expert panel was directed to look at the company more broadly and not at any specific airplane incidents or accidents, though it notes that “serious quality issues with Boeing products became public” on several occasions.

“These quality issues amplified the Expert Panel’s concerns that the safety related messages or behaviours are not being implemented across the entire Boeing population,” it states.

The report comes less than a month after the FAA head told an American congressional committee that Boeing’s oversight system “is not working.”

The panel reviewed more than 4,000 pages of Boeing documents and conducted more than 250 interviews with employees across six company sites.

Boeing’s stated goals are to prioritize safety, even declaring that “safety is our foundation” in August 2023, but the report stated its findings and recommendations “indicate gaps in Boeing’s safety journey.”