US examining Boeing's treatment of safety-related employees

A tiny radical of Boeing engineers who execute cardinal information tasks are raising concerns astir their quality to enactment escaped of unit from supervisors, and their comments are prompting national regulators to instrumentality a broader look into the company’s information culture.

The employees are deputized to o.k. information assessments and grip different jobs for the Federal Aviation Administration, making their independency from institution unit critical.

According to an FAA letter, 1 of the employees said, “I had to person a beryllium down with a manager and explicate wherefore I can’t o.k. something.” The idiosyncratic indicated that the institution shopped astir for different worker successful the engineering unit.

Another worker reported consternation by managers erstwhile engineers find responsibility successful designs of components due to the fact that that tin origin delays successful delivering airplanes.

The FAA's archetypal probe ran from May until July. An FAA authoritative described it successful an Aug. 19 missive to Boeing's person of information and craft certification. The Associated Press obtained a transcript of the letter, which was archetypal reported by The Wall Street Journal connected Tuesday.

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“We instrumentality these matters with the utmost seriousness, and are continuously moving to amended the processes we person successful spot to guarantee the independence” of employees who enactment connected behalf of the FAA, said Boeing spokeswoman Jessica Kowal. She said those employees “must beryllium accorded the aforesaid respect and deference that is shown" to FAA personnel.

The FAA surveyed 32 of the astir 1,400 Boeing employees who are deputized to enactment connected the FAA’s behalf. Of those surveyed, one-third raised concerns. The FAA said successful the missive to Chicago-based Boeing that it volition travel up by surveying each employees successful the unit.

The FAA introspection raises further questions astir a longstanding signifier of relying connected employees of craft manufacturers to execute safety-related work, including investigation of captious craft systems. The argumentation is expected to instrumentality vantage of the employees' specialized knowledge, and the companies are expected to springiness those workers authorization to execute the safety-related functions without interference.

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However, findings from Boeing “indicate the situation does not enactment independence” of the employees, Ian Won, an FAA authoritative who helps oversee Boeing, wrote successful the missive to the company.

The FAA's argumentation of relying connected information assessments by manufacture employees, called enactment designation authorization, came nether aggravated scrutiny aft 2 deadly crashes involving the Boeing 737 Max. Investigations determined that cardinal radical astatine the FAA were mostly unaware of an automated flight-control strategy that played a relation successful the crashes.

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