In February last year, a new Southwest Airlines Boeing 737 Max plane was on one of its first flights when an automated stabilizing system appeared to malfunction, forcing the pilots to make an emergency landing soon after they took off.
去年2月，美国西南航空公司的一架新波音737 Max客机首次飞行时，自动化稳定系统似乎出了故障，导致飞行员在起飞后不久紧急迫降。

Less than two months later, an Alaska Airlines 737 Max plane with eight hours of total flight time was briefly grounded until mechanics resolved a problem with a fire detection system. And in November, an engine on a just-delivered United Airlines 737 Max failed at 37,000 feet.
不到两个月后，美国阿拉斯加航空公司一架总飞行时间只有八个小时的737 Max客机被迫暂时停飞，直到机械师解决了机舱火警探测系统的问题。去年11月，美国联合航空公司一架刚交付使用的737 Max的发动机在1.1万米高空发生故障。

These incidents, which the airlines disclosed to the Federal Aviation Administration, were not widely reported. There were no indications that anyone was in danger, and it was not clear who was ultimately responsible for those problems. But since Jan. 5, when a panel on a two-month-old Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 jet blew off in midair, episodes like these have taken on new resonance, raising further questions about the quality of the planes Boeing is producing.
这几家美国航空公司报告给联邦航空管理局（简称FAA）的安全事故没有被广泛报道。没有迹象表明这些事故将乘客置于危险之中，也不清楚什么人最终对这些问题负有责任。但自从今年1月5日阿拉斯加航空公司一架机龄两个月的737 Max 9喷气式客机的一块机舱嵌板在半空脱落以来，类似事故引起了新的联想，使人们对波音公司生产的飞机质量产生了更多疑问。

“There’s a lot of areas where things don’t seem to be put together right in the first place,” said Joe Jacobsen, an engineer and aviation safety expert who spent more than a decade at Boeing and more than 25 years at the F.A.A.
“很多部位似乎当初就有组装上的问题，”身为工程师的航空安全专家乔·雅各布森说，他在波音公司工作了十多年，在FAA工作了25年以上。

“The theme is shortcuts everywhere — not doing the job right,” he added.
“关键问题是，到处都走捷径——没有把工作做好，”他还说。

Such reports, and interviews with aviation safety experts and more than two dozen current and former Boeing employees, paint a worrying picture about a company long considered to be at the pinnacle of American engineering. They suggest that Boeing is struggling to improve quality years after two crashes of Max 8 planes in 2018 and 2019 killed nearly 350 people.
这些报告，以及对航空安全专家和20多名现任和前任波音员工的采访，为这家长期以来被视为美国工程技术巅峰的公司勾勒出一幅令人担忧的图景。发生在2018年和2019年的两起737 Max 8客机坠毁事故造成了将近350人死亡。受访者们表示，事故发生后的几年里，在提高质量方面，波音一直困难重重。

Some of the crucial layers of redundancies that are supposed to ensure that Boeing’s planes are safe appear to be strained, the people said. The experience level of Boeing’s work force has dropped since the start of the pandemic. The inspection process intended to provide a vital check on work done by its mechanics has been weakened over the years. And some suppliers have struggled to adhere to quality standards while producing parts at the pace Boeing wanted them.
接受采访的人说，原本为确保波音飞机安全而设定的关键冗余层似乎只是在勉强维持。自疫情暴发以来，波音公司员工的经验水平有所下降。旨在对机械师的工作进行重要检验的质检过程多年来一直在减弱。在以波音要求的速度生产零部件时，一些供应商在满足质量标准方面一直面临困难。

Under pressure to show regulators, airlines and passengers that the company is taking its latest crisis seriously, Boeing announced sweeping changes to its leadership on Monday. The chief executive, Dave Calhoun, will leave at the end of the year, and Stan Deal, the head of the commercial planes division, which makes the 737 Max, retired immediately. The company’s chairman, Larry Kellner, stepped down from that position and will not seek re-election to the board.
迫于向监管机构、航空公司和乘客显示公司正在认真对待最新危机的压力，波音在上周一宣布对公司领导层进行全面调整。首席执行官戴夫·卡尔霍恩将于今年年底离职，商用飞机部门的负责人斯坦·迪尔将立即退休，737 Max由该部门生产。公司董事长拉里·凯尔纳辞去职务，并且不再寻求连任董事会成员。

When he took the top job in January 2020, Mr. Calhoun said he was determined to improve the company’s safety culture. It added directors with engineering and safety expertise and created a safety committee on its board. Boeing said that it had increased the number of quality inspectors for commercial planes by 20 percent since 2019 and that inspections per plane had also risen.
卡尔霍恩2020年1月出任波音首席执行官时曾表示，他决心改进公司的安全文化。公司增加了具有工程和安全专业知识的董事，并在董事会设立了安全委员会。波音称，自2019年以来，已将商用飞机的质量检查员人数增加了20%，每架飞机的检查次数也有所增加。

After the Max 8 crashes, Boeing and its regulators focused most on the cause of those accidents: flawed design and software. Yet some current and former employees say problems with manufacturing quality were also apparent to them at the time and should have been to executives and regulators as well.
737 Max 8坠机事件发生后，波音及其监管机构最关心的是事故原因：设计和软件上的缺陷。但一些现任和前任员工说，在他们看来，制造质量的问题当时也很明显，高管和监管人员也应该意识到了这点。

After the Jan. 5 mishap, a six-week F.A.A. audit of Boeing’s 737 Max production documented dozens of lapses in Boeing’s quality-control practices. The agency has given the company three months, or until about late May, to address quality-control issues.
1月5日的事故发生后，FAA对波音737 Max的生产过程进行了六周的稽查，记录了波音质量控制方面的几十处失误。FAA给了波音三个月时间（也就是大约在今年5月底之前）解决质量控制问题。

Federal officials have traced the panel blowout to Boeing’s factory in Renton, Wash., where the 737 Max is assembled. According to the National Transportation Safety Board, the panel was removed but appeared to have been reinstalled without bolts that secured it in place. That panel is known as a “door plug” and is used to cover the gap left by an unneeded emergency exit.
联邦官员已将机舱嵌板脱落事故的原因追溯到波音在华盛顿州伦顿市组装737 Max的工厂。据美国国家运输安全委员会的说法，该嵌板曾被取下，但似乎在装回去时没有使用将其固定到位的螺栓。该嵌板被称为“门塞”，用来覆盖一个不需要的紧急出口留下的空缺。

Current and former Boeing employees said the incident reflected longstanding problems. Several said employees often faced intense pressure to meet production deadlines, sometimes leading to questionable practices that they feared could compromise quality and safety.
现任和前任波音员工表示，该事故反映了长期存在的问题。几名员工说，工人经常在如期完成生产上面临巨大压力，有时会导致有问题的操作，他们担心这样的做法可能达不到质量和安全标准。

Davin Fischer, a former mechanic in Renton, who also spoke to the Seattle TV station KIRO 7, said he noticed a cultural shift starting around 2017, when the company introduced the Max.
伦顿工厂的前机械师达文·费舍尔也接受了西雅图电视台 KIRO 7的采访，他在采访中说，波音2017年推出737 Max机型后，他注意到公司的文化大约从那时起发生了变化。

“They were trying to get the plane rate up and then just kept crunching, crunching and crunching to go faster, faster, faster,” he said.
“他们想提高飞机的生产速度，然后不断地加紧、加紧、加紧，以便更快、更快、更快地生产，”他说。

The Max was introduced in response to a new fuel-efficient plane from the European manufacturer Airbus. Boeing increased production from about 42 Max jets a month in early 2017 to about 52 the next year. That pace collapsed to virtually zero soon after the second crash, in Ethiopia, when regulators around the world grounded the plane. Flights aboard the Max resumed in late 2020, and the company began to increase production again to avoid falling further behind Airbus.
737 Max机型的推出是为了应对欧洲制造商空中客车的节油新机型。2017年初，737 Max机型的产量是每月约42架，波音在2018年将产量提高到每月约52架。埃塞俄比亚发生了第二次坠机事件后不久，世界各地的监管机构都停飞了该机型的客机，737 Max的生产速度几乎降为零。使用737 Max机型的航班2020年底复飞后，为了避免进一步落后于空客，波音再次开始提高产量。

Now, some Boeing executives admit that they made mistakes.
现在，一些波音高管承认他们犯了错误。

“For years, we prioritized the movement of the airplane through the factory over getting it done right, and that’s got to change,” Brian West, the company’s chief financial officer, said at an investor conference last week.
“这些年来，我们优先考虑的是飞机在工厂的组装，而不是把事情做对，这种情况必须改变，”波音的首席财务官布莱恩·韦斯特在上周的投资者会议上说。

Mr. Calhoun has also acknowledged that Boeing must improve but has defended the company’s approach to production. “Over the last several years, we’ve taken close care not to push the system too fast, and we have never hesitated to slow down, to halt production or to stop deliveries to take the time we need to get things right,” he said in January. 卡尔霍恩也承认波音必须改进，但他为公司的生产方式进行了辩护。“过去几年里，我们一直非常小心，不把系统推得太快，为了花时间把事情做好，我们在放慢速度、停止生产、或停止交付方面从未犹豫过，”他今年1月说。

Current and former Boeing employees, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to reporters and feared retaliation, offered examples of how quality has suffered over the years. Many said they still respected the company and its employees and wanted Boeing to succeed.
接受采访的波音现任和前任员工提供了多年来质量如何受影响的例子，他们当中大多数人要求不具名，因为没有接受采访的授权，也担心遭到报复。许多人说，他们仍尊敬波音及其员工，希望波音成功。

A worker currently at Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner factory in North Charleston, S.C., described seeing numerous problems on planes being assembled, including wires being routed incorrectly, raising the risk that they could rub against one another, resulting in damage.
一名目前在南卡罗来纳州北查尔斯顿的波音787梦想飞机工厂工作的人称，他看到了组装飞机时的许多问题，包括电线的走线错误，这种错误会增加电线相互摩擦、导致损坏的风险。

Employees would also sometimes go “inspector shopping” to find someone who would approve work, the worker said.
这名工人说，员工有时还会“挑选质检员”，专门找会让他们的工作通过的人来检查。

Some of the concerns echoed accusations of quality lapses by several whistle-blowers at Boeing’s South Carolina factory who spoke to The Times in 2019.
在这些采访中听到的一些担忧与波音南卡罗来纳工厂的几名举报人2019年向时报投诉的质量问题相吻合。

Several current and former employees in South Carolina and in Washington State said mechanics building planes were allowed in some instances to sign off on their own work. Such “self-verification” removes a crucial layer of quality control, they said.
南卡罗来纳州和华盛顿州的几名波音现任和前任员工说，在有些情况下，公司允许制造飞机的机械师核准他们自己的工作。他们说，这种“自我查核”取消了质量控制的一个关键层次。

Boeing said in a statement on Wednesday that it had eliminated self-inspections in South Carolina in 2021 and that the practice accounted for less than 10 percent of inspections at other sites. The company inspects each plane before delivery to make sure that wire bundles are appropriately spaced, the statement said, and it does not allow inspector shopping.
波音上周三在一份声明中表示，公司已在2021年取消了南卡罗来纳州的自我查核，该做法在其他工厂的质量检查中只占不到10%。声明称，公司在交付前对每架飞机进行质量检查，以确保线束间隔适当，而且不允许挑选质检员。

Another factor at play in recent years has been that Boeing’s workers have less experience than they did before the pandemic.
近年来的另一个影响因素是，波音员工的经验比新冠病毒大流行前要少。

When the pandemic took hold in early 2020, air travel plummeted, and many aviation executives believed it would take years for passengers to return in large numbers. Boeing began to cut jobs and encouraged workers to take buyouts or retire early. It ultimately lost about 19,000 employees companywide — including some with decades of experience.
疫情在2020年初暴发后，航空旅行锐减，许多航空业高管曾以为，乘客人数回到以前的水平将需要好几年的时间。波音开始裁员，鼓励员工买断工龄或提前退休。全公司最终失去了约1.9万名员工，包括一些有几十年经验的员工。

Boeing now employs 171,000 people, including in its commercial plane, defense, services and other divisions. That figure is up about 20 percent from the end of 2020. But many new workers are less seasoned, current and former employees said.
波音目前在商用飞机、国防、服务和其他部门有17.1万雇员，人数比2020年底增长了约20%。但现任和前任员工认为，许多新雇员经验不足。

One Boeing employee who conducted quality inspections in Washington State until last year said the company did not always provide new employees with sufficient training, sometimes leaving them to learn crucial skills from more experienced colleagues.
一名去年才离开波音华盛顿州质检员职位的前员工说，公司没有为所有新员工提供足够的培训，他们有时只能向更有经验的同事学习关键技能。

Boeing said that since Jan. 5, employees had asked for more training and that it was working on meeting those needs, including by adding training on the factory floor this month.
波音表示，自今年1月5日以来，员工已提出需要更多培训的要求，公司正在努力满足这些需求，包括从3月起增加在工厂车间的培训。

Niral Chokshi撰写有关航空、铁路和其他运输行业的文章。

Sydney Ember是时报商业记者，报道美国经济和劳工市场。

Santul Nerkar是一名报道财经和体育新闻的记者。

翻译：Cindy Hao