US examining Boeing’s treatment of safety-related employees

By DAVID KOENIG
AP Airlines Writer

Federal officials are taking another look at the safety climate inside aircraft maker Boeing. The Federal Aviation Administration says 35% of people in a key engineering unit have raised concerns about their ability to work independently of the company and communicate with safety regulators. The FAA says it is looking more closely at the situation. The investigation raises further questions about a longstanding FAA practice of relying on employees of aircraft manufacturers to perform safety-related analysis. The policy is supposed to take advantage of the employees’ specialized knowledge, but it’s come under scrutiny since two deadly crashes involving the Boeing 737 Max, a plane that the FAA certified.