FAA launches probe into Boeing 787 Dreamliner

Yahoo Finance’s Brian Sozzi, Alexis Christoforous, Ines Ferre, and Alexis Keenan break down the market action for Boeing, after the FAA announced it’s investigating manufacturing flaws in some Boeing 787 Dreamliners.

Video Transcript

ALEXIS CHRISTOFOROUS: An hour into the trading day and stocks are actually off their worst levels of the day, believe it or not. The NASDAQ is down 200 points right now, about 2%. Was off 3% earlier today. The Dow is down more than 460 points, and the S&P off about 55. Big reason why the Dow is much lower today, shares of Boeing under pressure. That stock off more than 4% right now, after the FAA said it is investigating manufacturing flaws at some Boeing 787 Dreamliner factories. We've got Alexis Keenan following this one. Alexis, I know you've been following the Boeing saga for quite some time. What can you tell us about this latest investigation by the FAA?

ALEXIS KEENAN: Hi, Alexis. So this is the FAA here confirming, yes, that they are investigating what they say are manufacturing flaws that affect what they say are certain 787 jetliners. Now a week ago, there were reports that surfaced saying that Boeing had actually notified the FAA of what Boeing says are two distinct manufacturing issues involving the rear fuselage joints. That's where the parts of the rear fuselage come together. And that in combination, they fall short of the company's own design standards for those aircraft. And as a result, there were eight Dreamliners that were grounded so far.

Now in a statement, Boeing told Yahoo Finance that individually, these problems, these issues do meet what they say are the limit load conditions. But they don't meet those conditions when the two problems are found in the same location. Now "The Wall Street Journal" had a report that came out saying that the parts at issue could stem from a production problem, and that they were really structural defects that are requirements for the aircraft to safely take flight, and also to land.

Now in a separate statement, the FAA said that it continues to work with Boeing on this issue, but that right now, it's really still too early to speculate about whether this particular problem will arise to a higher level, meaning what would be an airworthiness directive. The FAA, they're just saying it's just too soon. The company as well as the agency, they're working on the problem. But whether it will be required mandated changes for this aircraft is still pending here.

BRIAN SOZZI: All right, Alexis Keenan, thanks so much.