US aviation regulator orders inspections of Boeing 767s

The U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is ordering inspections of the Boeing 767, one of the aerospace giant’s most popular commercial jets, to check for problems that it says could cause loss of control of the airplanes. The problem cited is something that the FAA and Boeing have been probing since 2000, and the jets already have been subject to earlier inspections. But the U.S. aviation regulator, in a notice published Monday, said it has determined that potential problems with rivets could cause “failures or jams” that affect the 767’s ability to climb or descend. The failure could result in “possible loss of control of the airplane,” the FAA wrote. The problem has not been cited as a cause in any crash of a 767, which is one of the most widely-used Boeing jets. The company has delivered more than 1,000 of the long-range widebody airplanes since it entered service in 1982.