Boeing says it couldn’t find business records related to exploding door panel

SEATTLE – Boeing acknowledged in a letter to Congress that it could not find records of work done on the door panel that exploded on an Alaska Airlines flight over Oregon two months ago.

“We have reviewed extensively and found no such document,” Ziad Ojakli, Boeing vice president and government lobbyist, wrote to Senator Maria Cantwell on Friday.

The company said its “working hypothesis” was that records were never created for the removal and reinstallation of the panel on the 737 MAX final assembly line in Renton, Washington, even though Boeing’s systems required it to do so.

The letter, which The Seattle Times previously reported, follows a contentious Senate committee hearing Wednesday in which Boeing and the National Transportation Safety Board sparred over whether the company cooperated with investigators.

Safety board chair Jennifer Homendy testified that Boeing repeatedly refused for two months to identify employees working on door panels on Boeing 737s and failed to provide documentation related to a repair job that involved removing and reinstalling the door panel.

“It’s ridiculous that we don’t have this after two months,” Homendy said. “Without this information, concerns arise regarding quality assurance, quality management and safety management systems at Boeing.”

Cantwell, a Democrat from Washington, demanded a response from Boeing within 48 hours.

Shortly after the Senate hearing, Boeing said it had provided the NTSB with the names of all employees working on 737 gates and had previously shared some of them with investigators.

In the letter, Boeing said it had already made clear to the safety board that it could not find the documents. Until the hearing, “Boeing was unaware of any complaints or concerns regarding lack of cooperation,” it said.

Boeing has been under increasing scrutiny since the Jan. 5 incident when a panel blocking space left for an extra emergency door exploded on an Alaska Airlines Max 9. The pilots were able to land safely and there were no injuries.

In a preliminary report released last month, the NTSB said four bolts that help hold the door stopper in place were missing after the panel was removed so workers could repair damaged rivets nearby last September. Homendy said Wednesday that the rivet repairs were done by contractors working for Boeing supplier Spirit AeroSystems, but the NTSB still does not know who removed and replaced the door panel.

The Federal Aviation Administration recently gave Boeing 90 days to say how it will respond to quality control issues raised by the agency and a panel of industry and government experts. The panel found problems in Boeing’s safety culture despite improvements made after two Max 8 jets crashed in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people.