Substandard Parts on Jetliners Due to Insufficient Oversight

Air Safety Week,  March 10, 2008  

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A recently-released report by the U.S. Transportation Department's inspector general shows that some jetliners have been built with "substandard" parts, some of which were manufactured in foreign countries where production oversight is spotty.

The DOT released the federal oversight report dated February 26, 2008 after it was made public by the Project On Government Oversight (POGO), a nonprofit watchdog organization for government accountability.

The IG report says that "neither manufacturers nor FAA inspectors have provided effective oversight of suppliers; this has allowed substandard parts to enter the aviation supply chain."

It added: "The nature and number of discrepancies found at suppliers we visited would not have been identified through records reviews only... For example, a supplier of fuel system parts for a major manufacturer had no record of the manufacturer ever completing an on-site audit of their facility. We found numerous deficiencies at this facility, including problems with the calibration program, employee training and product inspection."

POGO says the DOT audit found that outsourcing to other countries is a significant safety oversight concern and that the Federal Aviation Administration and major aerospace companies have failed to ensure quality control.

The quality control issue should be of concern, the IG report says, because more and more cheaper aircraft parts are coming from foreign manufacturers. Whereas Boeing's first jetliners were built almost exclusively in the United States, the airframe parts for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner is primarily manufactured overseas.

"A massive effort must be made to beef up the entire aviation safety oversight apparatus--lives and billions of dollars are at stake," said Nick Schwellenbach, a POGO investigator. "This is further proof that the FAA continues to be a captured agency, offering just a fig leaf of ineffective regulation at the public's peril. And manufacturers continue to put short-term profit ahead of proven and prudent safety and quality."

Downplaying the ominous undertones of the OIG report, the FAA stressed "there are absolutely no imminent safety issues raised by the report," according to agency spokeswoman Alison Duquette.

The audit said that aircraft manufacturers are not verifying that their suppliers are providing effective oversight of the sub-tier suppliers they used to produce parts.

The IG report cited engine failures in 2003 due to faulty speed sensors on fuel pumps obtained from a supplier. Three of the engine failures occurred on the ground and one occurred in flight. The part failures were traced to unapproved design changes made by a sub-tier supplier.

IG probers found that in February 2003, one supplier released approximately 5,000 parts that were not manufactured properly for use on landing gear for large commercial passenger aircraft. At least one of these landing gear parts failed while in service.

The audit showed that one parts supplier allowed new, untrained employees to manufacture several components. IG investigators witnessed one new employee improperly inspecting a product. A later review of his training record showed that he had not received any formal training in proper inspection methods.

The IG audit examined supplier oversight at Boeing, Bombardier/Learjet, General Electric Aircraft Engines, Rolls-Royce, Pratt & Whitney, and Airbus, as well as at the FAA.

The IG investigators found that the "FAA needs to improve its risk-based oversight system as it does not ensure that manufacturers regularly audit their suppliers. FAA also does not perform enough audits of manufacturers' suppliers (i.e., supplier control audits) to test how well manufacturers' quality assurance systems are working. Rather, FAA requires its inspectors to conduct, at most, four supplier audits regardless of how many suppliers a manufacturer uses.

"This process is not adequate to determine the risk that a manufacturer will produce substandard parts. FAA's process for supplier audits should be designed to address newer manufacturing business models, which have expanded the number of foreign suppliers, locations where parts are assembled, and the degree of independent manufacturing responsibility suppliers now have," the IG report stated.

The DOT IG recommended that the FAA:

* Require manufacturers to establish criteria for conducting on-site audits for initial supplier approval and conduct periodic audits of suppliers to ensure that quality assurance systems are followed throughout the supply chain.

* Develop a risk assessment process that emphasizes suppliers of flight- critical parts (e.g., those that manufacture critical and high-volume parts or use large numbers of suppliers, etc.) for passenger aircraft.

* Develop a risk assessment process that reduces the level of subjectivity in evaluating manufacturers so that inspectors' risk assessments will be more consistent.