BOEING Co, already facing a delay of at least 14 months on its new 787 Dreamliner aircraft, said it will know "soon" whether a supplier's damage to the fourth of six test planes will affect the full program.
The mid-body fuselage section built by Global Aeronautica LLC, a venture with Alenia North America, was damaged "by an Alenia employee not following proper work procedures" in South Carolina, Boeing spokeswoman Yvonne Leach said.
"We resolved it, but we have to look at the schedule and what that means" for the fourth plane as well as the timetable, Leach said.
The part hasn't yet been shipped to Everett, Washington, where Boeing is doing the final-assembly work, she said, adding that "when we get the section, we'll know better about the overall impact."
Boeing, based in Chicago, has pushed back first deliveries of the plane three times since October because of parts shortages, changes to the wing section and problems with the supply chain.
Those delays, along with the February loss of a US$35-billion US Air Force tanker aircraft to a group including larger rival Airbus SAS, have dragged the stock down 32 percent in the past year.
The damaged section is "an emerging hiccup" for the 787, said Scott Hamilton, a Washington-based aviation consultant for Leeham Co, told Bloomberg News. The jet needs to keep an "aggressive" flight-test schedule to meet the target for entry into service in the third quarter of 2009, he said.
June brought the biggest monthly decline in Boeing shares since the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington in September 2001. Boeing fell US$1.20 to US$65.72 on Monday in New York Stock Exchange composite trading. Yesterday, the company's shares in Germany fell 0.9 percent at the equivalent of US$65.15 in Frankfurt.
The 787 is the first commercial aircraft to be made mostly of carbon-composite material, requiring a different manufacturing process than traditional aluminum planes.
Boeing commissioned suppliers in the US, Japan and Italy to make completed sections that are then shipped to Everett to be snapped together and have the wings and wheels attached.
The new processes created delays, and the jet is now due to make its initial flight in the fourth quarter.