[November 26, 2008]

Boeing: Faulty connectors are on widebodies, not just 737s

(Seattle Times, The Via Acquire Media NewsEdge) Nov. 26--Boeing said Tuesday that a defect in small connecting parts called nutplates is more widespread than previously acknowledged and has been found on its 747, 767 and 777 wide-body jets.

The problem, first confirmed last week on narrow-body 737 jets, has slowed the restart of Boeing production after the two-month shutdown due to the Machinists strike.

The company is replacing the faulty nutplates on planes still on its assembly lines before it delivers them. Based on typical production, that means mechanics will have to rework more than a dozen jets.

Boeing said the problem, involving nutplates without a protective anti-corrosion coating, does not affect flight safety.

The nutplates, small stainless-steel connectors about an inch long, are used to attach small parts to the airplane and typically "make removable details easier to remove and reinstall," said Boeing spokeswoman Bev Holland.

About a third of the connectors on aircraft sections built by Boeing supplier Spirit Aerosystems in Wichita, Kan., are missing the protective coating.

Hundreds of affected airplanes now in service will likely have their nutplates inspected -- and about a third of the Spirit nutplates will have to be replaced -- during regular heavy-maintenance checks within the next 18 months.

Spirit makes the entire 737 fuselage. It also builds the nose-and-forward-fuselage sections of all the wide-body jets, as well as the pylons and nacelles.

Holland said the new 787 Dreamliner, for which Spirit builds the composite plastic nose-and-forward fuselage section, is not affected.

Boeing will inspect all airplanes now on its assembly lines in Renton and Everett, and will replace the nutplates as needed before any more jets are delivered. That process is almost complete in Everett, Holland said.

Last week at a conference in New York, Boeing Commercial Airplanes Chief Executive Scott Carson talked about the nutplate problem affecting the smaller 737s in Renton, but didn't mention the Everett wide-bodies.

Boeing spokesman Jim Proulx said that's because the scale of the problem is much more significant in Renton, where the planes have more of the nutplates and where some 30 of the aircraft per month roll out in normal production, compared to one or two 747s and 767s and a handful of 777s.

In New York, Carson said that each 737 contains about 4,200 nutplates and that each must be individually inspected.

A 777 has about half that number, Proulx said, while each 747 and 767 has only a few hundred.

One of Spirit's three suppliers for the nutplates delivered the parts without a cadmium coating that is required to avoid corrosion when steel comes in contact with aluminum.

Boeing's Holland said that all 476 airplanes delivered from Everett and Renton since September 2007 have nutplates that may be missing the coating. That's 363 of the smaller 737s from Renton and 113 widebodies from Everett.

Alaska Airlines has taken 15 of those 737s. Southwest Airlines has 38 of them.

Until Boeing mechanics inspect all the nutplates on each plane, it doesn't know how many will need replacing.

Holland said Boeing thinks airlines need take no immediate action and is working with the Federal Aviation Administration and doing tests "to make sure that's true."

Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com

To see more of The Seattle Times, or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.seattletimes.com.

Copyright (c) 2008, Seattle Times
Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services.
For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.

[ Back To TMCnet.com's Homepage ]

Discussions: