Named airlines using planes with suspicious parts

Airliner components may pose safety hazards

US officials say as many as forty airlines around the world may be flying Boeing 737s with suspicious steering parts. The US National Transportation Safety Board says operators may not have been aware of components that could pose a safety risk.

The US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said on Monday that more than 40 foreign operators of Boeing 737 aircraft may be flying aircraft with steering components that could pose a safety risk, The Guardian writes.

Last week, the transportation safety authority issued an urgent safety advisory over the possibility of a jammed rudder control system on some Boeing 737 aircraft following a February incident involving a United Airlines flight.

The NTSB also said Monday that it has learned that two foreign operators suffered similar incidents involving deployment control actuators in 2019.

“We are concerned that other airlines may not be aware of the presence of these actuators on their Boeing 737 aircraft,” NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy said Monday in a letter to Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Mike Whitaker.

The NTSB is investigating an incident in which the rudder pedals on a United Airlines Boeing 737 Max 8 became stuck in neutral during landing in Newark. 161 passengers and crew were not injured.

Boeing shares fell 2.7% on Monday, The Guardian notes.

The National Transportation Safety Board reported that 271 impact parts could be installed on in-service aircraft operated by at least 40 foreign air carriers; 16 of them can still be installed on US-registered aircraft; and up to 75 may have been used for aftermarket installations.

Jennifer Homendy said she was concerned that the FAA “did not take this issue more seriously until we published our urgent safety recommendations report.”

The Federal Aviation Administration said it takes the NTSB's recommendations seriously and planned to conduct additional simulator testing in October.

The FAA's Corrective Action Review Panel met Friday, and the agency said it was "quickly conferring with appropriate civil aviation authorities to ensure they have the necessary information from the FAA, including any recommended actions."

United Airlines said last week that the steering parts in question were used in only nine of its Boeing 737 planes originally built for other airlines, and all the components were removed earlier this year.

The NTSB said Thursday that no US Airlines Boeing 737s are operating with damaged actuators, which were installed on some previous-generation 737 Max and 737 NG aircraft that included an optional landing system.

In August, Boeing said it had advised “Boeing 737 operators affected by the accident of a possible rudder control actuator malfunction.”