The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), disclosed its contemplation of conducting a comprehensive survey involving every Boeing employee to assess the company’s safety culture. This announcement came during a meeting with the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation.
The NTSB is currently investigating an incident where a door plug fell off an Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max 9 in January. They found that the plane, delivered only 66 days earlier, was missing important bolts from the factory.
The board highlighted that everyone at Boeing, including top executives, wants to figure out what went wrong and fix it. They may use a survey to understand how Boeing’s safety culture affects their work.
A similar survey was done at Norfolk Southern after a train accident last year.
Boeing has over 1,70,000 employees globally, with about 1,36,000 in the US. Should the survey materialise, it could offer Boeing invaluable insights into necessary enhancements in its manufacturing protocols, particularly as the company grapples with heightened scrutiny and strained relationships with airlines.
However, the board cautioned that they’re still gathering information and haven’t decided if the survey will happen.
Sometime back, a similar issue arose when a Boeing whistleblower claimed safety problems with the 777 and 787 planes. Boeing responded that if the removal of the door plug wasn’t recorded, there wouldn’t be any records to show.
To this, the board mentioned that the NTSB is checking if Boeing properly documented similar tasks and is looking into it.
