Boeing ousts 737 Max leader
Company to overhaul quality control process for the airplane after Oregon midair mishap
Boeing said Wednesday that it was shaking up the leadership in its commercial airplanes unit after a harrowing episode last month during which a piece fell off a 737 Max 9 jet en route to Ontario.
Ed Clark, the head of Boeing's 737 Max program, which includes the Max 9, is leaving immediately, Stan Deal, the CEO of the commercial airplanes unit, said in a memo to employees. Boeing, which also announced other leadership changes, has been under pressure from regulators, airlines and members of Congress to prove that it is committed to making safe planes.
Boeing said in recent weeks that it was overhauling its quality control process, including increased inspections at the factory in Renton, Washington, where Clark oversaw Max production.
The leadership changes are the company's most prominent attempt to show it is holding itself accountable for the Jan. 5 episode that left a fuselage hole in an Alaska Airlines plane.
Clark took over the Max program in 2021 as the company was accelerating production of the plane, which had been banned from flight worldwide for 20 months after two fatal crashes killed 346 people. Those crashes cost Boeing billions of dollars, deeply damaged its image and attracted far more scrutiny of the company from regulators worldwide.
Deal said Wednesday that Katie Ringgold, previously in charge of 737 deliveries, would take over the Max program, and that another executive, Elizabeth Lund, would take on a new role overseeing quality across all of Boeing's commercial airplanes. Mike Fleming, who oversaw the Max's return to service after the crashes, will succeed Lund in heading the unit's plane programs. Don Ruhmann will take over Fleming's role as vice president of development programs.
The leadership changes will contribute to Boeing's “enhanced focus on ensuring that every airplane we deliver meets or exceeds all quality and safety requirements,” Deal said in the memo. “Our customers demand, and deserve, nothing less.”
Richard Aboulafia, a managing director at the aerospace consulting firm AeroDynamic Advisory, commended Boeing for promoting from within rather than bringing in outsiders to shake up leadership. But, he cautioned, such changes have limits.
“I would also recommend regarding their workforce and supply chain companies as mere commodities — in other words, making sure they are adequately resourced,” he said. “Organizational changes can only go so far in addressing the fundamental problem.”
The Alaska Airlines episode occurred shortly after takeoff from Portland International Airport in Oregon. At about 16,000 feet, a panel known as a door plug blew off the Max 9 jet, terrifying passengers and forcing the pilots to return to Portland for an emergency landing. The plug is a barrier used to cover a gap in the plane's body where an extra exit door could optionally be installed. The mishap could have been far more catastrophic had the plane reached cruising altitude.
Almost immediately, the Federal Aviation Administration grounded all Max 9 jets in the United States. The agency later cleared the jets to fly after inspections were conducted, but said it would limit Boeing's plans to increase production of the Max until the agency was satisfied that Boeing could show it had fixed its quality issues.
The National Transportation Safety Board this month released a preliminary report on the episode that said two pairs of bolts partly responsible for holding the plug in place had been removed at Boeing's Renton factory and appeared never to have been replaced. It remains unclear how such a mistake could have occurred, especially on a manufacturing floor where every aspect of the process is supposed to be documented and inspected.