Boeing has told the FAA that some of the composite structures of its Boeing 787 aircraft have been contaminated with Teflon and might not be as strong as they were intended to be. The information is contained in an internal FAA memo reviewed by the Seattle Times and is the latest in a long list of manufacturing defects being investigated and reviewed by the agency. There’s apparently no immediate safety risk for the in-service fleet but the composite issue will possibly delay the resumption of production of the aircraft. “We’re looking at the undelivered airplanes nose to tail, and we have found areas where the manufacturing does not conform to the engineering specifications,” a Boeing spokesperson told the Times. “None of these issues is an immediate safety-of-flight issue.”
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/composite-contamination-latest-787-defect