By Francesca Landini
MILAN (Reuters) -Italian prosecutors charged seven people and two subcontractors on Saturday with crimes including fraud and violating aircraft safety rules following an investigation into allegedly defective parts produced by an Italian company for Boeing (NYSE:).
Prosecutors launched their investigation in late 2021 after Boeing said some parts of its 787 Dreamliner plane, supplied by a company working for Italian aerospace group Leonardo, were improperly manufactured.
Investigators found that two Italian subcontractors used cheaper and non-compliant forms of titanium and aluminum to make certain parts, saving significant sums of money on their raw material costs, prosecutors said in a statement, without naming the subcontractors or the seven people .
“This resulted in the realization of aircraft parts with significantly lower static and stress-resistant properties, with consequences for aviation safety,” prosecutors in the southern city of Brindisi said.
Two sources familiar with the matter told Reuters that former Leonardo supplier Manufacturing Process Specification (MPS) and its now bankrupt predecessor Processi Speciali were the two companies at the center of the investigation.
MPS owner Antonio Ingrosso and his father Vincenzo, who headed Processi Speciali, were two of the seven people involved in the investigation.
The two men are “confident that they acted with full respect for the law,” their lawyer told Reuters.
The seven people and two subcontractors will now be given time to present any new evidence in their defense before prosecutors decide whether to ask a judge to open a trial.
Aerospace experts working with prosecutors have certified at least 4,829 noncompliant components made of titanium and 1,158 made of aluminum, prosecutors said.
“The expert work and investigations concluded that some non-compliant structural components could cause long-term damage to the safety of the aircraft, requiring the US company to initiate an extraordinary maintenance campaign for the affected aircraft,” they said. Boeing and Leonardo were victims of the alleged crimes and had cooperated with the investigation.
Leonardo and Boeing declined to comment.
