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Boeing aforesaid Tuesday that a blemish in small connecting parts called nutplates is more widespread than previously acknowledged and has been institute on its 747, 767 and 777 wide-body jets.

The problem, pristine confirmed last week on narrow-body 737 jets, has slowed the restart of Boeing production after the two-month shutdown due to the Machinists strike.

The company is replacing the faulty nutplates on planes still on its collection lines before it delivers them. Based on typical extension, that resources mechanics will be in possession of to rework again than a dozen jets.

Boeing said the problem, involving nutplates without a protective anti-corrosion coating, does not affect flight safety.

The nutplates, molecular stainless-steel connectors about an inch far-seeing, are used to attach small endowments to the airplane and typically “make removable details easier to remove and reinstall,” said Boeing spokeswoman Bev Holland.

About a third part of the connectors on aircraft sections built by Boeing supplier Spirit Aerosystems in Wichita, Kan., are missing the protective coating.

Hundreds of affected airplanes very lately in service will likely have their nutplates inspected — and about a third of the Spirit nutplates will have to be replaced — during regular heavy-maintenance checks within the next 18 months.

Spirit makes the not notched 737 fuselage. It also builds the nose-and-forward-fuselage sections of all the wide-body jets, as not a little of the same kind with the pylons and nacelles.

Holland said the new 787 Dreamliner, for which Spirit builds the compounded plastic nose-and-forward fuselage section, is not affected.

Boeing enjoin inspect all airplanes at that time on its assembly lines in Renton and Everett, and will replace the nutplates as needed face to face with any more jets are delivered. That process is almost complete in Everett, Holland said.

Last week at a conference in New York, Boeing Commercial Airplanes Chief Executive Scott Carson talked about the nutplate problem affecting the smaller 737s in Renton, yet didn’t mention the Everett wide-bodies.

Boeing spokesman Jim Proulx said that’session because the scale of the moot point is abundant more significative in Renton, where the planes obtain more of the nutplates and where some 30 of the aircraft per month roll out in normal production, compared to one or two 747s and 767s and a handful of 777s.

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