US lawmakers are expected to press Boeing’s CEO on Tuesday over the company’s latest plan to resolve production problems, and relatives of people killed in two crashes of Boeing 737 Max planes plan to the room looking at him.
CEO David Calhoun will appear before the Senate investigative subcommittee, which is chaired by Senator John Calhoun. Richard BlumenthalD-Conn., a Boeing critic.
The hearing will mark the first appearance before Congress by Calhoun – or any other senior Boeing official – since a panel blew out of a 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. No one was seriously injured in the incident, but it raised new concerns about the company’s best-selling commercial aircraft.
The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are conducting separate investigations.
“From the beginning, we have taken responsibility and worked transparently with the NTSB and the FAA,” Calhoun said in his remarks before the hearing. He defended the company’s safety culture.
“Our culture is far from perfect, but we are taking action and making progress,” Calhoun said in prepared remarks. “We are taking comprehensive action today to strengthen safety and quality.”
Blumenthal has heard that before, when Boeing was reeling from the deadly Max crashes in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019.
“Five years ago, Boeing committed to overhauling its safety practices and culture. That promise proved empty, and the American people deserve an explanation,” Blumenthal said in announcing the hearing. He called Calhoun’s testimony a necessary step for Boeing to regain public trust.
Calhoun’s appearance would also come as the Justice Department considers prosecuting Boeing for violating the terms of a settlement over the deadly crashes.
The company says it has understood the message. Boeing says it has slowed production, encouraged workers to report safety problems, shut down assembly lines for a day to let workers talk about safety, and appointed a retired Navy admiral to lead a quality review. At the end of last month, it delivered an improvement plan commissioned by the FAA.
However, the drumbeat of bad news for Boeing continues.
This past week, the FAA said it was investigating how falsely documented titanium parts entered Boeing’s supply chain, and federal officials were investigating “substantial” damage to a Southwest Airlines 737 Max after an unusual mid-flight control problem.
Boeing announced that it has not received a single order for a new Max, previously its best-selling plane, in two months.
Blumenthal first asked Calhoun to appear before the Senate subcommittee after a whistleblower, a Boeing quality engineer, alleged that manufacturing defects increased safety risks on two of Boeing’s largest planes, the 787 Dreamliner and the 777. He said it company had to explain why the public should have confidence in Boeing’s work.
Boeing pushed back on the whistleblower’s claims, saying extensive testing and inspections showed none of the problems the engineer had predicted.
Calhoun announced at the end of March that he will retire at the end of this year. The head of the company’s commercial aircraft division resigned the day of Calhoun’s announcement.
Families of people killed in the Boeing Max crash in Ethiopia plan to attend Tuesday’s hearing on Capitol Hill. They have repeatedly pressured the Justice Department to prosecute Boeing.
“We will not rest until we see justice,” said Zipporah Kuria, whose father died in the crash. She said the US government “must hold Boeing and its executives criminally responsible for the deaths of 346 people.”
The Justice Department determined last month that Boeing violated a 2021 settlement that protected the company from fraud prosecution for allegedly misleading regulators who approved the 737 Max. A top department official said Boeing has failed to make changes to detect and prevent future violations of anti-fraud laws.
Prosecutors have until July 7 to decide what to do next.
