Boeing Ignored Us, Says Safety Panel

A safety panel assembled by the Federal Aviation Administration has had its recommendations ignored by Boeing, according to a senior member.

Javier de Luis, an aerospace engineer at Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Department of Aeronautics, told Newsweek that he has seen no evidence from Boeing that any of his panel's recommendations were enacted.

In January 2023, the FAA tasked 24 engineers, industry executives and aerospace experts to investigate the effectiveness of Boeing's safety management protocols.

De Luis's sister, Graziella, was onboard the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 which crashed shortly after leaving Addis Ababa in 2019, killing all 157 onboard.

In April 2024, de Luis testified before congress to discuss the findings of the report.

"Our panel met for almost a year, reviewed 4,000 pages of documents provided to us by Boeing, interviewed 250 Boeing employees at all levels of the organization, across six Boeing's locations, and reviewed thousands of survey responses," Javier said.

The expert panel identified 27 findings and made 53 associated recommendations to Boeing on how it should reform its safety management programs.

These included educating employees on their role in the safety management system (SMS), creating an autonomous investigation process to avoid retaliation against whistleblowers, and improve safety culture communication across all levels of the company.

The report, published in late February, recommended that Boeing review the panel's findings, and develop an "action plan" within six months to "comprehensively" address each finding and recommendation.

This would give Boeing until August to unveil its plan, but de Luis told Newsweek that the only thing so far released by the company was an "executive summary" of its 90-day plan on June 3.

"They basically parroted back our own words on what changes needed to be made, without providing any information about how exactly they plan to do it," de Luis said. "So, assuming that more detail actually exists, I have not seen it."

In the document, the company said: "Boeing has already adopted some of the panel's recommendations and is working on implementing the rest."

When contacted for comment, Boeing told Newsweek that the panel's report "is a key source for development of out safety and quality plan this year," but did not provide specifics regarding which recommendations it has, or intends to, implement.

Rich Plunkett, a representative of the SPEEA Boeing engineer's union and a member of the expert panel alongside de Luis, said he was able to secure the detailed plan from Boeing, though he was unable to share this with Newsweek.

However, Plunkett told Newsweek that the detailed plan "only exemplifies the lack of introspection contained in the executive summary," and fails to address the roots of its many safety issues.

Nadia Milleron, whose daughter was also onboard during the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crash in March 2019, spoke to Newsweek about the findings of the report.

"They worked for more than a year on going to all the Boeing plants doing surveys and analyzing what is the problem here? What are the safety problems? How could it be corrected? And then they made recommendations," Milleron told Newsweek. "None of those recommendations have been followed."

Milleron said she was confused as to why so much effort had been expended by the panel in outlining Boeing's issues and crafting solutions, only for these to be ignored by the company.

"What did they put in that all that work for, all those surveys, interviewing Boeing people at Boeing plants all over the country, what did they do all that for?"

"All those people came up with recommendations, very thoughtfully worked out recommendations, we should at least follow them."

Boeing is also facing a deadline to react to the FAA's special audit item (SAI), which was launched after a door plug blew off an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 in January, forcing the aircraft to make an emergency landing in Portland, Oregon.

The investigation found that, in the 89 product audits conducted by FAA auditors, Boeing passed 56 inspections and failed 33.

Boeing said its response to the SAI is due on July 23.

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Update 7/10/24, 3:25 a.m. ET: This article was updated with comment from Rich Plunkett.