Wichita-based Spirit Aerosystems has also been under scrutiny following the incident
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that Boeing $BA is in talks to acquire Spirit AeroSystems, the parts supplier behind the Alaska Airlines door plug blowout incident from January that resulted in an emergency landing, plane groundings, and an enormous amount of scrutiny.
Wichita, Kansas-based Spirit, which used to be part of Boeing until being spun out in 2005, puts together fuselages for planes. Its stock is up more than 13% in Friday trading.
In a preliminary report from the National Transportation Safety Board, investigators concluded that the door plug — which acts as a stand-in for an unused emergency exit door — was manufactured in March 2023 by Spirit in Malaysia, attached to the 737 Max 9 fuselage at the heart of the incident at Spirit in Wichita during summer 2023, then shipped to Boeing’s facility in Renton, Washington at the end of August 2023.
At that point, Boeing workers noted some damage to rivets around the frame of the door plug. Four bolts that helped secure the door plug to the plane were removed to fix the problem by Spirit workers, and it was discovered after the emergency landing that the bolts were missing.
Early last month, after the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) head Michael Whitaker told Congress that the agency was putting “more boots on the ground” at Boeing to ensure better safety practices, Reuters reported that the FAA was also sending inspectors to Spirit’s facilities.
Boeing did not immediately respond to a Quartz request for comment.
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