Airliners manufactured by Boeing and Airbus have components made from titanium that was sold with fake documentation.
The Federal Aviation Administration revealed the problem after Boeing reported it to the agency when it was notified by parts supplier Spirit AeroSystems.
Spirit is the same company that made the door on the 737 Max plane that suffered a door blowout on January 5 and began Boeing’s recent spate of problems.
Faked documentation certifying the authenticity of the titanium could mean it was not up to standard or tested to withstand the rigors of air travel.
The FAA said it was ‘investigating the scope and impact of the issue’ and how it could affect the safety of the unknown number of planes using the parts.
The new titanium issue added to Boeings woes since a door fell off Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 mid-flight on January 5
‘Boeing reported a voluntary disclosure to the FAA regarding procurement of material through a distributor who may have falsified or provided incorrect records,’ it said.
‘Boeing issued a bulletin outlining ways suppliers should remain alert to the potential of falsified records.’
The problem was discovered after a parts supplier found small holes in the titanium from corrosion.
Spirit, which makes fuselages for Boeing and wings for Airbus, was testing the metal to determine if it was up to standard and structurally sound enough.
‘This is about documents that have been falsified, forged and counterfeited,’ it said.
‘Once we realized the counterfeit titanium made its way into the supply chain, we immediately contained all suspected parts to determine the scope of the issues.’
Spirit was also trying to trace the source of the material to find out more about it and how it got into the supply chain unnoticed.
The documentation is knows as a certificate of conformity and details where the titanium came from, how it was made, and its quality.
The suspect parts were used in planes made in 2019 to 2023 including the Boeing 737 Max and 787 Dreamliner and the Airbus A220.
The fuselage plug area of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 Boeing 737-9 Max, which was forced to make an emergency landing with a gap in the fuselage
Boeing chief executive David Calhoun, who will step down at the end of the year, said many times that Boeing was taking steps to improve its manufacturing quality and safety culture
Spirit said it was used in the 787’s passenger entry door, cargo doors, and a component that connects the engines to the plane’s airframe, and a heat shield in the 737 Max and A220 that protects the connecting component.
Boeing and Airbus declined to say how many planes were flying with parts made from the undocumented titanium.
They insisted planes containing the parts were safe to fly, but Boeing said it was removing affected parts from planes that haven’t yet been delivered to airlines.
‘This industrywide issue affects some shipments of titanium received by a limited set of suppliers, and tests performed to date have indicated that the correct titanium alloy was used,’ Boeing said
‘To ensure compliance, we are removing any affected parts on airplanes prior to delivery. Our analysis shows the in-service fleet can continue to fly safely.’
Airbus similarly said: ‘Numerous tests have been performed on parts coming from the same source of supply.
‘The safety and quality of our aircraft are our most important priorities, and we are working in close collaboration with our supplier.’
Boeing said tests indicated the parts were made from the correct titanium alloy, which raised questions about why the documentation was falsified.
Spirit said it was so far unable to determine if the metal was treated enough to meet aviation standards, adding it passed some tests but failed others.
Rescuers work at the scene of an Ethiopian Airlines flight of a Boeing 737 Max 8 plane crash near Bishoftu, or Debre Zeit, south of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, March 11, 2019, which took the lives of 157 people
Boeing said it bought most of the titanium it used directly from other sources, and supply was not affected by the documentation issue.
Sources told the New York Times that the issue dates to 2019 when material supplier Turkish Aerospace Industries bought the batch of titanium from a Chinese supplier, and sold it to several other suppliers.
One of them was Italian firm Titanium International Group, which noticed in December 2023 that it looked different to the titanium it usually received.
The certificates that came with it also seemed inauthentic.
TIG earlier sold some of the suspect titanium to Spirit, and notified it after the discovery – stressing it had no idea the paperwork was forged at the time.
Spirit began investigating, and told Boeing and Airbus in January that it couldn’t verify where the titanium came from.
Sources told the NYT the deception originated with the Chinese supplier, which presented it as being from well-known and trusted Chinese supplier Baoji Titanium Industry.
‘Baoji Titanium doesn’t know about the company and has no business dealing with this company,’ the firm told the newspaper, confirming it didn’t sell the batch of metal in question.
As a result, where the titanium came from was not clear, and the affected parts would likely be monitored and replaced during routine maintenance.
The troubled 737 Max is one of the planes made using the affected components
The FAA told Boeing to present its turnaround plan after an Alaska Airlines jet had a door blowout mid-flight at 16,000 feet on January 5.
Nobody was hurt during the midair incident. Accident investigators determined that bolts that helped secure the panel to the frame of the Boeing 737 Max 9 were missing before the piece blew off.
The mishap has further battered Boeing’s reputation and led to multiple civil and criminal investigations.
A new inquiry was opened by the regulator earlier this month following Boeing’s astonishing admission staff may have skipped some inspections of its 787 Dreamliner planes.
The FAA added that it was investigating ‘whether Boeing completed the inspections and whether company employees may have falsified aircraft records’.
Boeing halted deliveries of the 787 widebody jet for more than a year until August 2022 as the FAA investigated quality problems and manufacturing flaws.
In 2021, Boeing said the planes had shims that were not the proper size and some aircraft had areas that did not meet skin-flatness specifications. A shim is a thin piece of material used to fill tiny gaps in a manufactured product.
The 737 Max, a narrow-body jet, has also had its fair share of close calls in the air.
A Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 was forced to make an emergency landing at Denver International Airport after part of the engine blew off in early April.
Boeing could also face criminal prosecution over two fatal 737 Max crashes after Boeing was accused of violating a settlement which allowed them to avoid earlier charges.