by David Shepardson and Allison Lampert

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The head of the U.S. Civil Aviation Authority (FAA) said on Tuesday that the agency plans to permanently post inspectors at Boeing production sites, saying the “current system does not work not”, one month after the loss of a fuselage part in mid-flight on board an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9.

During a parliamentary hearing, Mike Whitaker, the administrator of the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration), reiterated the need to strengthen oversight of Boeing and its supplier Spirit AeroSystems, which manufactures the 737 fuselage.

“I certainly agree that the current system is not working, because it is not providing safe devices. So we need to change that,” he said.

“What matters to me is that Boeing manufactures safe planes,” added the head of the FAA. “If you don’t have that safety culture, I think it’s difficult to make safe planes.”

Since the Alaska Airlines incident, which did not cause any casualties, the FAA has dispatched around twenty inspectors to the 737 production site in Renton, Washington, and six others to a factory from Spirit to Whichita, Kansas, for a six-week audit. The investigation has not yet revealed any failure requiring immediate action.

Mike Whitaker said inspectors would regularly monitor Boeing’s operations once the audit is complete.

According to him, the January 6 incident raises two questions: what was wrong with the aircraft concerned but also “what is wrong with production at Boeing”.

“There have been problems in the past. They don’t appear to be resolved, so we see a need for an increased level of oversight,” he said.

Boeing has already grounded the 737 MAX for months in 2019 and 2020 after two deadly accidents which left a total of 346 dead.

(Reporting David Shepardson in Washington and Allison Lampert in Montreal; Jean-Stéphane Brosse for the , editing by Jean Terzian)

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