- Author, Charlotte Edwards
- Role, BBC business reporter
Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun will tell US lawmakers on Tuesday that he understands concerns about safety culture after a mid-air emergency raised alarms in January.
In prepared remarks ahead of the U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing, he said, “Our culture is far from perfect, but we are taking action and making progress. We understand the seriousness.”
The company has been in the spotlight since an unused door fell off a brand new 737 Max plane during a flight operated by Alaska Airlines, leaving a gaping hole in the side.
As part of an ongoing investigation, Boeing whistleblowers told the Senate in April that the 737 Max, 787 Dreamliner and 777 models had serious production problems.
But concerns about Boeing’s attitude toward safety and quality control at its factories are not new.
The company faced intense criticism five years ago after two 737 Max planes were lost in separate but nearly identical accidents, killing 346 people.
Calhoun is also expected to apologize to the affected families on Tuesday. This will be the first time he has given evidence to the panel during his time as CEO.
“We are deeply sorry for your losses,” his prepared opening comments say. “Nothing is more important than the safety of the people who board our planes.”
He became CEO of Boeing in 2020, as the company was reeling from the aftermath of the deadly crashes.
In October 2018, the Lion Air crash led to a temporary landing of the Boeing 737 Max.
All 189 people on board the flight were killed after the plane crashed into the Java Sea 13 minutes after takeoff from Jakarta, Indonesia.
In March 2019, an Ethiopian Airlines flight, a Boeing 737 Max, crashed six minutes after takeoff from the Ethiopian capital Addis Ababa.
All 157 on board were killed and both crashes were related to faulty flight control systems.
Since the 2018 and 2019 incidents, relatives of the victims, some of whom are still resolving legal claims against the company, have spoken out.
Some of them plan to attend the hearing on Tuesday.
Zipporah Kuria, who lost her father in the 2019 crash, is one of them.
“I flew from England to Washington, DC, to hear in person what the CEO of Boeing has to say to the Senate and the world about any safety improvements made at that company,” she said in a statement ahead of the hearing.
“We will not rest until we see justice,” she added.
Ahead of Tuesday’s hearing, Senator Richard Blumenthal, chairman of the panel, said in a statement: “Boeing must fix a broken safety culture and that is management’s job.”
“Years of profit over safety, stock price over quality and production speed over responsibility have brought Boeing to this moment of reckoning, and its empty promises can no longer hold,” he added.
Dave Calhoun, Boeing’s outgoing CEO who also served as president for the past four years, also said in his prepared remarks that it was “grateful” there were no fatalities in the Alaska Airlines incident.
“I come from this industry and I know very well that this is an industry where we simply have to get it right every time,” he wrote.
He also added that in the aftermath of the incident, the company has cooperated with investigations by US authorities, listened to employees and conducted “stand downs” at factories to address any issues.
In May, the company also presented regulators with a plan to improve the quality of its aircraft.