Boeing is unable to provide key information in door plug blowout investigation, NTSB chair says

Investigators probing the Boeing 737 Max blowout say their investigation is being held back by Boeing’s lack of a paper trail for key work.

Investigators probing the Boeing 737 Max blowout say their investigation is being held back by Boeing’s lack of a paper trail for key work. Despite interviewing employees who work at Boeing’s Renton, Washington facility that assembles the 737 Max, as well as collecting other paperwork, the National Transportation Safety Board says it has not determined who in Boeing’s factory worked on the door plug that left the factory with missing bolts and later blew out on an Alaska Airlines passenger flight in January. Boeing recently said it has searched for records but believes its employees did not document the work. “The absence of those records will complicate the NTSB’s investigation moving forward,” NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy wrote in a letter to the Senate committee that is also probing Boeing. The letter noted that Boeing has also been unable to provide security footage of the September 2023 work, which included removing and reinstalling the door plug.  Homendy told the Senate Commerce Committee last week that her investigators noticed Boeing “security cameras all over the facility,” but that they were told the footage is kept for only 30 days. The letter revealed that the NTSB’s first request to Boeing for relevant employees’ names came on January 9 — four days after the mid-flight incident. On February 2, the NTSB says Boeing provided “names of individuals who may provide insight regarding the work performed.” NTSB said it requested another list of names on March 2 as it prepared for a series of interviews with Boeing employees last week.