The head of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), Mike Whitaker, has said that Boeing faces a “long road” ahead as a key safety deadline approaches.
The FAA Administrator spoke to ABC News on May 22, 2024, where he was quizzed about safety at Boeing following the Alaska Airlines 737-9 door plug blowout on January 5, 2024.
Whitaker was specifically asked about Boeing’s response to a six-week audit conducted by the FAA earlier in the year following the Alaska Airlines incident.
In March 2024, the FAA said that the audit had discovered “multiple instances” where Boeing, and supplier Spirit AeroSystems, had “allegedly failed to comply with manufacturing quality control requirements”.
Boeing was given 90 days to address the audit’s findings as part of its “comprehensive corrective action plan to fix systemic quality-control issues”. The action plan deadline is scheduled for next week.
During the interview with ABC, Whitaker said he had been working closely with Boeing over the last 90 days on “what that plan is going to look like if it’s to bring the quality back where it needs to be at their factories”.
“What we are seeing next week is the plan going forward, it’s not the end of the process, it’s the beginning. It’s going to be a long road getting Boeing back to where they need to be making safe airplanes,” Whitaker said.
He added that the objective was to “bring the safety system where it needs to be and bring the culture where it needs to be so that employees can speak up when they see something that is concerning”.