Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Administrator Mike Whitaker said the agency could expand its investigation into manufacturing processes beyond the 737 Max assembly operations if it finds evidence of problems elsewhere at Boeing.
Whitaker said that for now, the agency's investigation is focused on center door jams on the Max 9 planes, but said: "Boeing makes a lot of planes, so we'll be looking at the Max, but we'll also be looking at the company systematically to see if these problems are occurring elsewhere as well. It depends on where the evidence leads us."
A wider investigation will put additional pressure on a company that is grappling with a growing crisis of trust. Boeing Max operations have been plagued by a series of quality lapses since two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019 killed 346 people.
Whitaker said the problems found so far in the FAA's latest inspections are manufacturing defects, not design flaws.
"Given the history we cannot ignore, our focus is on quality control and the manufacturing process," he said.
Meanwhile, airline fleets continue to operate without the Max9. Whitaker declined to discuss the agency's timeline for resuming Max9 flights.
"There's no time frame," he said. "It will happen when we know the aircraft is safe to fly."