How faulty parts on Boeing's 787 jets flew below the radar in Italy

On a Saturday morning in May, 2020, Italian police officers caught two men pouring chemical waste into the sewers in the southern port city of Brindisi, near a small plane components factory. Five years on, that routine pollution case has spiralled into a wide-ranging judicial investigation into how thousands of flawed titanium and aluminium parts manufactured in Italy ended up in nearly 500 Boeing 787 jets still in use. The probe focuses on how tiny aero-part-maker Manufacturing Process Specification (MPS) allegedly defrauded clients by using cheaper and weaker metals to make floor fittings and other plane parts. Company executives deny the charge. A preliminary hearing on the case was due to open in Italy on Thursday, but was postponed at the last minute until May 15. Boeing has repeatedly said that there is no immediate safety risk. U.S. regulators, meanwhile, are preparing technical guidance for airlines to detect and replace any bad parts, without opting for the emergency orders reserved for the most pressing cases. But the precarious chain of events that led detectives to the alleged scam, including the surprise pollution find, raises broader questions about the failure by the aerospace industry's own voluntary audit system to detect sub-standard components. Detectives were already investigating MPS' owners over the bankruptcy of their previous firm. But after catching two MPS workers dumping polluting liquids next to the factory, police broadened their enquiries to the Brindisi firm's raw material purchases, three investigative sources said. With the help of whistleblowers, police found that MPS and its predecessor company had bought very small quantities of the prescribed metals required for 787 jets, including a tough titanium alloy, switching instead to cheaper and less resilient pure titanium, they said.<br/>