FAA Warns Some Boeing 737s May Have Faulty Parts on Wings
KEILAR: We're back now to discuss the new issue that's facing Boeing, and that includes problems on the wings of 737 jets. I want to talk now with former FAA safety inspector, David Soucie. And, David, this is a part that's called the leading edge slat on the wing. What does this do exactly?</s>DAVID SOUCIE, CNN AVIATION SAFETY ANALYST: It's part of the secondary flight control system. It's not primary. So Boeing is saying it's not that big of a deal going on right now. But what it does is reshapes the wing allowing it to fly at a lower altitude or a lower speed, like during takeoff or landing, so that the wing allows the pilot to have more control over the aircraft. That's really what this slat does on the front of the wing.</s>KEILAR: The "New York Times" did this expose recently of a -- of the Boeing plant in South Carolina that made the Dreamliner. A whistleblower exposed shoddy manufacturing processes there. When you're looking at Boeing now, this company, companywide, does it have an endemic problem with the way it's building airplanes and quality control?</s>SOUCIE: You know, I think it's too early to say that. I did inspections on aircraft manufacturing companies and airlines for 18 years with the FAA. It's not uncommon to find certain things, particularly when they are under the microscope right now, and there's things that are going to come up and be issues. To determine whether it's systemic or endemic that would take a lot more data and a lot more information. But right now, there are issues of concern. And whether Boeing is responding appropriately, that's really what the next step to determine right now is.</s>KEILAR: What do you think, as you're watching? You have this issue with the slats, right? I think part of this it's not happening in a vacuum, right? You've got the MCAS system, which they are now saying that things are sort of -- they are correcting the issue there and that pilots are prepared, but they are not doing any flight simulator time for that. What do you think about Boeing's response here? What do you think about liability issues for Boeing?</s>SOUCIE: Well, those are two separate questions. I answer the first one, which is that, is there a problem, is there something going on within Boeing and allowing these things to continue to happen. I believe there's. What I believe is going on is that if -- looking at their responses, I think they're miscalculating or misclassifying issues. Let's take this slat track issue. The slat track, they're saying, well, it can't bring down on aircraft. Even if it failed completely, it wouldn't bring down an aircraft. Well, I was looking earlier, in 2007, a 737 was crashed. It was a China Airlines. And it landed safely but then broke into a fire because this slat track stop mechanism, which is at the end of the slat track, had broken lose and punctured a hole in the slat track can. So that can ruptured into a fuel cell. The fuel cell spilled out and caused a fire and destroyed that aircraft. Luckily, no one was killed on that accident. However, what this tells me is, when they're addressing the impact, what could happen, they're preemptively saying, well, what could happen is this but don't worry about it. The fact is there's a risk. There is a risk that if that slat track is not properly treated, it would crack, and that stop, the same stop on the China Airlines, would have come loose and got wedged in the can and caused a fuel leak. So they're not assessing the impact of what happens. The likelihood is rare, I agree with that. But when you're comparing likelihood with impact of what could happen, if it happened, this still falls, in my estimation, as something that's safety critical. They're giving them 10 days to inspect it. That is not sufficient to me.</s>KEILAR: What is sufficient, really quickly, if you can add?</s>SOUCIE: Oh, I think all the aircraft that have these on need to be inspected immediately before the next flight.</s>KEILAR: David Soucie, thank you so much. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo knocking Jared Kushner's peace plan, calling a peace plan un-executable. Also, a Republican Congressman admits he probably killed hundreds of civilians while in combat. And moments from now, the president will attend a state banquet during his U.K. visit. We have new details on his encounter with Prince Harry after the president called Prince Harry's wife, Meghan Markle, his criticism, "nasty" -- her criticism of him.