Boeing CEO recognizes ‘gravity’ of safety crisis but sees ‘progress’

Boeing’s CEO acknowledged to a US congressional panel Tuesday that the company’s culture was imperfect, but insisted the aviation giant was making progress and committed to improving safety.

“Our culture is far from perfect, but we are taking action and making progress,” Calhoun said early in the hearing. Calhoun opened his remarks by standing to apologize to family members of victims from two Boeing 737 MAX in 2018 and 2019.

The hearing, an examination of “Boeing’s Broken Safety Culture,” follows an April session of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations featuring a Boeing engineer who testified that he was punished for raising safety questions about the top-selling 787 Dreamliner and 777.

Calhoun’s appearance marked his first testimony before a congressional panel since an alarming mid-flight incident in January on a 737 MAX plunged the company back into crisis mode. US investigators are still probing the incident with the Alaska Airlines plane, which made an emergency landing after a fuselage panel blew out.

On Tuesday morning, the Senate committee detailed additional complaints from Boeing workers, including an official filing from a whistleblower who worried that Boeing’s lax policies on the use of damaged or inadequate parts could “lead to a catastrophic event,” according to a subcommittee memo.

Boeing stands “at a moment of reckoning and an opportunity to change a broken safety culture,” said Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, who chaired the hearing.

The session came ahead of a Department of Justice determination on next steps after concluding in May that the company could be prosecuted for violating a criminal settlement following two fatal 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019, off Indonesia and in Ethiopia.