FAA expands oversight of Boeing amid investigation into in-flight blowout

The Federal Aviation Administration is launching a new plan to ensure Boeing’s manufacturing process produces airplanes that are safe to fly.

The FAA said Friday it will expand oversight of the Renton-based company, following an incident last week in which a piece of fuselage broke off of a 737 Max 9 jet mid-flight.

“We know there are problems with manufacturing,” FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker told CNBC. “There have been problems in the past, but these are continuing. The aircraft that was involved in the accident last week on Alaska was less than three months old, so this is a brand-new aircraft. It has just come off the line, and it had significant problems, and we believe there are other manufacturing problems as well.”

Under the new plan, the FAA will conduct an audit of Boeing’s Seattle-area 737 Max 9 production lines and increase monitoring when the aircraft is serviced.

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The FAA will also look at Boeing’s quality control procedures and instances where matters of safety are delegated. The FAA said Friday it may explore “options to move these functions under independent, third-party entities.”

“We welcome the FAA’s announcement and will cooperate fully and transparently with our regulator,” Boeing said in a statement. “We support all actions that strengthen quality and safety and we are taking actions across our production system.”