by Boeing has urged airlines to inspect all 737 Max planes for a possible loose bolt in the rudder control system after an international airline discovered a bolt with a nut missing while performing routine maintenance, it said. on Thursday the Federal Aviation Administration.
After the international airline, which the agency did not name, noticed the missing nut, Boeing discovered that an undelivered 737 Max also had a nut that was not properly tightened, the FAA said.
Boeing said it has delivered more than 1,370 planes worldwide since 2017 and has urged that all be inspected for possible loose hardware. The company said it was also inspecting its undelivered 737 Max planes.
“The problem identified on the particular aircraft has been resolved,” Boeing said in a statement. “Out of an abundance of caution, we recommend operators inspect their 737 Max aircraft and report any findings to us.”
The FAA said it was closely following inspections and would consider additional measures if additional cases of loose or missing hardware were discovered.
Boeing said there had been no “in-service incidents” caused by possible loose hardware and that, before leaving the gate, flight crews perform routine checks that would alert them if the rudder was not working properly.
Such inspections involve removing an access panel and visually confirming that the bolt in the rudder control system has been installed correctly, Boeing said. The company added that the inspections would take about two hours by plane.
Several major American air travel companies, including United Airlines, Southwest Airlines, American Airlines and Alaska Airlines, use the 737 Max, a single-aisle cargo aircraft built for short and intermediate hauls.
United, American, Southwest and Alaska said they did not expect the inspections to affect their operations. Alaska said it would begin inspections on Thursday and hoped to complete them in the first half of January. Southwest said it was carrying them out during routine overnight maintenance.
The 737 Max has a deeply troubled history.
In 2018, one of the planes, operated as Lion Air Flight 610, crashed into the ocean off the coast of Indonesia, killing all 189 passengers and crew members on board. Less than five months later, in 2019, another, operated as Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, crashed shortly after leaving Ethiopia’s capital, Addis Ababa, killing all 157 people on board.
Regulators around the world grounded the Max after the second crash. The FAA cleared it to fly again in late 2020 after Boeing made changes to the plane, including to MCAS, the flight control system behind the crashes. The company said in late 2019 that it had fired its CEO and agreed to a $2.5 billion settlement with the Justice Department in 2021.
Boeing last year reached a $200 million settlement with U.S. securities regulators, resolving an investigation into claims that the company and its former chief executive had misled investors about problems with the 737 Max that led to the Deadly accidents.
