By Joanna Plucinska and Tim Hepher
COLOGNE (Reuters) - The acting head of Europe’s aviation regulator has warned the agency would suspend its indirect approval of Boeing’s jet production if warranted, but told Reuters he felt reassured that the planemaker is tackling its latest safety crisis.
In an interview, the European Union Aviation Safety Agency's (EASA) acting executive director, Luc Tytgat, gave the first public indication that international cooperation underpinning global airplane production was being tested as rarely before by the ongoing crisis over Boeing (NYSE:BA)'s best-selling 737 MAX series.
Asked on Wednesday if EASA would be prepared to stop recognising U.S. approvals declaring that Boeing jets are built safely, Tytgat said: "If need be, yes".
Boeing has been under mounting pressure over factory controls since Jan. 5, when a door plug tore off a 737 MAX 9 jet in mid-air in an incident blamed on missing bolts.
The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said last week an audit of Boeing and supplier Spirit AeroSystems (NYSE:SPR) found multiple instances of poor controls.
Under a transatlantic pact, the FAA and EASA regulate the factories of their respective planemakers - Boeing and Airbus - and recognise each other's safety approvals.
If one side loses confidence in the other's compliance checks, it can call for consultations and, if those fail, suspend recognition after a pause of 30 days.
Such steps are rare, however.
"All the tools must be implementable as soon as we see the justification or situation that requires us to take appropriate measures," Tytgat said, adding that no such action was imminent.
EASA's influence over the design of Boeing planes has grown following two MAX crashes, but it has relatively few ways to increase its monitoring of the production of existing Boeing models other than the drastic option of suspending recognition.
Pressed on what would push EASA to go that far, Tytgat said, speaking only for himself: "More fatal accidents in the future".
The FAA did not comment directly on Tytgat's remarks but a spokesperson reiterated the agency's earlier statements that Boeing must commit to “real and profound improvements”.
Boeing declined comment.
'REASSURED' ON BOEING
Tytgat did not see any immediate threat to Boeing's production certification, however.
"We don't see why (it) cannot be maintained today. It is more (about) the oversight and monitoring conditions that are in place."
Tytgat said he held a discussion with senior Boeing executives on Friday that was reassuring.
"I have seen a change in the management. They put a lot of weight on quality controls, product quality and I was really reassured about the willingness of the top management to change .... production quality control," he said.
FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker said on Monday it would take action if it saw a reason to halt Boeing production.
A decision by either of the world's two most powerful aviation regulators to halt production approval of each other's export industries would take the safety crisis into uncharted territory and likely stir political reactions, experts said.
Relations between the U.S. and European agencies have improved but still bear bruises from an earlier crisis over fatal crashes of MAX jets in 2018 and 2019, which led to worldwide groundings and pressure over designs from EASA, they said.
Aerospace analyst Nick Cunningham of Agency Partners said Tytgat's comments "could be interpreted as a warning shot across the bows of the FAA," this time over production controls.
Tytgat said EASA was "working extremely well" with its U.S. counterpart.
The European agency said it had been invited for the first time by the FAA to join an audit of Boeing as an observer later this year, after U.S. inspectors attended a recent European audit of an Airbus plant in the United States.
"This will be the first time and can be seen as a significant step forward in the mutual confidence-building," Tytgat said in a follow-up email following the interview.