Boeing was once one of the most advanced and respected aerospace companies in the world, introducing the first commercial passenger jet in North America—the 707—and building the world’s most popular narrow-body jet, the 737.
But the company’s quality control has hit the skids in recent years, and barely a week goes by without headlines about a problem with a Boeing jet, or with the company’s Starliner space capsule, which is now sitting broken at the International Space Station along with two stranded American astronauts.
Now it’s the company’s largest jet, the 777X, under the microscope. Boeing has grounded its entire fleet of the planes after a flight test showed that the planes have a structural weakness in what’s called the “thrust link structure.” This is a component that keeps the engines mounted to the wings; definitely not a problem that can be overlooked.
Boeing discovered the problem during the post-flight inspection of a plane that was being test-flown from the Kona Airport in Hawaii. The August 16 test flight was five and a half hours long. The thrust link structure had completely detached, the inspectors found, although the engine was still attached to the plane.
In a statement from Boeing, a spokesperson said they found a “component that did not perform as designed.” The company said it was replacing the parts and incorporating “any learnings” from the part when they begin a new round of test flights.
This testing process is designed to ferret out problems like this before they affect passenger safety. Finding problems is expected, and the same thing happened during the test flights for Boeing’s earlier iteration of the jet, the 777-9. Inspectors found cracks in the engine components on that model, too.
So far, no 777X jets are in commercial service; they’re still in the testing phase, and the latest mishap will extend the timeline, although by how much is not clear.
The 777 is now Boeing’s largest widebody jet, taking over for the now-retired 747, the iconic double-decker known as the Queen of the Skies. Boeing delivered the last new 747 off the assembly line in 2023. Depending on internal configuration, the 777 can carry up to 368 passengers.
