Senators grill Boeing CEO over two fatal crashes
chief engineer for commercial airplanes, John Hamilton, spent about 80 minutes at the witness table.
The committee then heard from two safety officials who helped shape reports about the Boeing plane.
The hearing took place one year after a 737 Max crashed off the coast of Indonesia and more than seven months after a second crash in Ethiopia.
In all, 346 people died. Muilenburg’s testimony was the first by a Boeing executive since the crashes. The CEO is scheduled to testify before a House committee Wednesday.
Indonesian investigators say Boeing’s design of MCAS contributed to the crash of a Lion Air Max last October.
Ethiopian authorities are continuing to investigate the second crash, involving a plane flown by Ethiopian Airlines, which led to a worldwide grounding of the plane.
“Both of these accidents were entirely preventable,” committee Chairman Roger Wicker, R-Miss., said.
More than a dozen relatives of passengers who died in the accidents attended the hearing. Wicker invited them to stand and hold up large photos of their relatives, which they had carried into the room.
Muilenburg turned in his seat to look at them.
In Indonesia, the CEO of Lion Air vowed Tuesday to follow recommendations from a probe into the disaster. Relatives of victims scattered flowers on waters where the aircraft went down a year ago.
Muilenburg told senators that Boeing is in the final stages of updating flight software to improve safety by adding redundancy — tying MCAS to a second sensor and second computer at all times, and making the system’s ability to push a plane’s nose down less powerful.
Chicago-based Boeing hopes to win Federal Aviation Administration approval by year end to return the plane to flight.
The FAA is also coming under scrutiny for relying on Boeing employees to perform some certification tests and inspections. It’s an approach FAA has followed for many years.