Boeing Co.’s North Charleston plant delivered a 787 Dreamliner jet, ending a five-month dry run of the program, after production failures led to months-long inspections.
The 787 made in South Carolina was delivered to an unidentified customer on the morning of March 26.
Minor defects found last year in the 787s’ fuselage lining initiated a long inspection process that has delayed jet deliveries since last October. Friday’s delivery was in line with Boeing’s statements earlier this month that it would start delivering the jets again before the end of March.
The restart comes after “several months of engineering analysis and inspection work,” Boeing said in a statement.
“Our commitment to safety and compliance has led us to scrutinize many aspects of the program to ensure that we continue to deliver planes that meet all of Boeing’s regulatory requirements and the highest quality standards,” said the aircraft manufacturer based in Boeing. Chicago.
The delivery takes place shortly after the Federal Aviation Administration, on Thursday, issued certificates of airworthiness to two Dreamliners.
Last week, the agency announced that it was stepping up oversight of the program by taking over airworthiness inspections for four of the jets, including aircraft manufactured in North Charleston. The FAA expects to complete checks on the other two “in the next few days,” according to a statement.
Airworthiness certificates were issued for the first two aircraft “after full inspections confirmed that the aircraft met all airworthiness standards,” said the FAA.
Typically, Boeing would complete these checks without FAA intervention, although the agency has said that occasionally in the “past few years” it has made the revisions to “meet its inspection currency requirements”.
These four revisions, however, were described by the FAA as part of the “corrective actions” that address the 787’s production problems.
These issues became widely known last August, when Boeing told airlines to withdraw eight of its 787s from service due to “two separate manufacturing problems” that together “result in a condition that does not meet the standards of design (from Boeing). “
Boeing began analyzing data for the rest of the fleet in service and found that irregularities in the flatness of the fuselage skin were present in other parts of the jet. In September, the aircraft manufacturer warned that inspection for failures could begin to delay deliveries, and at the end of the year, inspections were expanded and suppliers were also asked to carry out their own checks.
Before Friday, the last Dreamliners delivered were the four 787s delivered in October, one for each AerCap, American Airlines, Etihad Airways and Saudi Arabian Airlines.
Last month, the Boeing website in North Charleston was the only place that makes the Widebody Dreamliner. The last 787, made at the Boeing plant in Everett, left the production line at the end of last month.
But due to the scale of 787 inspections underway, the Everett factory continues to work on the Dreamliners made there.
Vice President of the 787 program and the leader of Boeing’s South Carolina website, Lane Ballard, referred to the ongoing checks in a message to employees on Friday that announced the resumption of Dreamliner deliveries.
“As the verification work continues in Everett and South Carolina, we will focus on security as we offer exceptional quality and value to our customers,” Ballard said in the message.
At both locations, Boeing still has dozens of Dreamliners to unload, now that it has started delivering them again. Finance chief Greg Smith said in January that about 80 Dreamliners were in stock.
Boeing said it plans to unload most of them by the end of 2021.
After delivering a total of 157 planes last year, a 60 percent drop from 2019, Boeing directors said they are counting on deliveries of the Dreamliners and 737 Max jets that have accumulated in stock to generate a flow of more robust box this year.