Lax oversight on plane parts reported

WASHINGTON -- Regulators and aircraft manufacturers are not keeping adequate tabs on the quality of plane parts made domestically and abroad, potentially raising risks for fliers, government investigators said in a report released Friday.

The Transportation Department's inspector general's office said the Federal Aviation Administration has failed to conduct enough audits to determine whether manufacturers' quality-assurance systems are working.

Investigators found "widespread discrepancies" at 20 of 21 suppliers they reviewed, including the age of equipment used to make airplane parts and the frequency of product testing before shipping parts to airplane manufacturers.

There are 15 countries -- including Mexico, Portugal, Turkey, Pakistan and India -- that produce parts for U.S. aircraft manufacturers without bilateral trade agreements, meaning "FAA has no assurance that these countries are providing adequate oversight of the operations of suppliers in their countries," the report found.

The inspector general said that FAA officials agreed in December with most of the findings and recommendations after seeing a draft of the report.

Recommendations included bolstering inspector training and assessing product-quality risks at suppliers that produce flight-critical parts. The FAA already has developed a new way to identify risk in the supply chain and will deploy it beginning next year, agency spokeswoman Alison Duquette said Friday.

The Boeing Co., United Technologies Corp.'s Pratt & Whitney and General Electric Aircraft Engines were among the manufacturers that the federal inspectors contacted or visited during the audit, which began in February 2004 and concluded in November. Suppliers that were visited or contacted include Alcoa Fastening Systems and two units of Honeywell International Inc.

A Boeing spokesman said the Chicago-based company takes the report seriously "and if necessary, will make changes to our processes to ensure the highest level of safety for our products."

Of the 21 facilities audited, six had little or no oversight by the manufacturer during the two years before the inspectors' visit. During that period, five of those six supplier facilities also had not received any FAA oversight.

The Teamsters union and a business travelers trade group called last month for a moratorium on all aircraft maintenance done overseas because they say foreign locations are not properly regulated.