Boeing Co. has grounded a total of eight of its 787 Dreamliner planes currently in use at three different airlines after finding flaws in the manufacturing.
The affected planes will undergo inspection and repair of how parts of the fuselage were joined together, according to CNN.
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“Boeing has identified two distinct manufacturing issues in the join of certain 787 aftbody fuselage sections, which, in combination, result in a condition that does not meet our design standards,” Boeing said in a statement.
The company said it is conducting a thorough review into the root cause of the problem, particularly to see how widespread the issue is. There are nearly 1,000 787s that have been delivered to 69 different airlines worldwide since it started operations in 2012.
The airline industry publication The Air Current first broke the news about the inspections and reported that the three airlines involved are United, Air Canada and Singapore Airlines.
Spokespeople for United and Singapore confirmed that each airline had one of the eight affected planes in its fleet. Both airlines said the affected planes were not in service when the problem was discovered.
It is the latest issue to plague the beleaguered company. Boeing’s most popular plane, the 737 MAX, has been grounded since March of 2019 since two separate crashes killed a total of 346 passengers and crew. It is still waiting for approval from the Federal Aviation Administration to start flying again.
In the meantime, the FAA said it was aware of the problem with the 787 Dreamliner and “will continue to work closely with (Boeing) going forward.”
