Boeing 737: Former quality manager 'concerned' planes back in service after blowout incident as issues 'have been ignored'

A former quality manager at Boeing has warned that 737 planes are back up in the air too soon. John Barnett, told TMZ Live yesterday (Wednesday 31 January), that he is “concerned” about the aircraft being back in service as the door plug blowout incident was due to “jobs not being completed properly”.

The door plug blowout incident occurred on 5 January shortly after the Alaska Airlines flight took off. The plug covering an unused exit door blew off and passengers had to cling on. The draught reportedly tore a T-shirt from a child’s back. 

Following the incident, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) grounded the fleet of Boeing 737 Max 9 planes. However, last week both Alaska Airlines and United Airlines, who use these fleet of planes, announced that their aircraft will now return to service - and since the announcement last week the planes have been back in the skies. 

Mr Barnett told TMZ that “they have done due diligence and inspections to ensure that the door plugs on the 737 are installed properly” but “my concern is what about the rest of the aeroplane?”. He added that he has these concerns because “inspection steps have been removed” and issues are “being ignored”. 

He said: “When I first started working at Charleston I was in charge of pushing back defects to our suppliers. I took a team of inspectors to Spirit Aerosystems to inspect the 41 section before they sent it to Charleston and we found 300 defects, some of them were significant and needed engineering intervention.”

His comments come after former US congressman, Peter DeFazio, accused Boeing of being “happy” to rely on “crappy stuff” from its subcontractor Spirit AeroSystems “because it’s cheap”. Spirit AeroSystems built the door plug that blew out of the Alaska Airlines plane on 5 January.

On 8 January Spirit said in a statement that "quality and product integrity" are a priority. It said: "Spirit is a committed partner with Boeing on the 737 programme, and we continue to work together with them on this matter."