Italian prosecutors accuse 7 people, 2 firms over flawed Boeing plane parts

Italian prosecutors on Saturday accused seven people and two sub-contractors of crimes including fraud and breaching airplane safety rules following an investigation into suspected flawed parts produced by an Italian company for Boeing. The prosecutors launched their investigation in late 2021 after Boeing said some parts for its 787 Dreamliner plane supplied by a company working for Italian aerospace group Leonardo had been improperly manufactured. Investigators found that two Italian sub-contractors used cheaper and non-compliant forms of titanium and aluminium to make certain parts, saving significant sums of money on their raw material costs, the prosecutors said in a statement, without naming the sub-contractors or the seven people.