Boeing CEO fired in wake of deadly 737 Max crashes
Boeing ousted CEO Dennis Muilenburg on Monday with no end in sight to the crisis that has engulfed the vaunted American aircraft manufacturer since the crash of two of its 737 Max airliners.
The Boeing board had supported Muilenburg for months despite calls for his resignation from lawmakers and relatives of the passengers killed. When it became clear in recent days that federal regulators would not certify the grounded Max to fly again by year’s end as Muilenburg had hoped, the board finally abandoned him.
Board members made the decision to remove him on a conference call Sunday, according to a person familiar with the events who discussed the private deliberations on condition of anonymity.
The move came after another bad week for Boeing. The aerospace giant had announced it would temporarily halt production of the Max because it wasn’t clear when it could deliver the planes. And Boeing’s new Starliner space capsule went off course during a bungled, unmanned test flight to the International Space Station.
Boeing said Muilenburg will depart immediately and the board’s current chairman, David Calhoun, will take over as CEO on Jan. 13. The company declined to make Calhoun or other executives available for comment.
Investigators say that in both crashes, a faulty sensor caused the plane’s automated MCAS flight-control system to push the nose of the plane down, and the pilots were unable to regain control.
Ababu Amha, who lost his wife, a flight attendant, in the second crash, involving an Ethiopian Airlines aircraft, welcomed Muilenburg’s departure.
“This is something that we have been asking and struggling for quite some time,” he said. “The CEO reluctantly and deliberately kept the aircraft in service after the Lion Air crash. The Ethiopian Airlines crash was a preventable accident.”
The resignation, however, is not enough, Amha said: “They should further be held accountable for their actions because what they did was a crime.”
Muilenburg was faulted for Boeing’s initial response to the first accident, in which he and the company seemed to suggest the pilots were at fault. Criticism of Muilenburg increased in recent months as news reports and congressional investigations disclosed internal documents that revealed concern within Boeing’s ranks about key design features on the Max, especially the new flight-control system.
In late October, lawmakers and relatives of passengers who died called on the CEO to quit.
Earlier this month, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration expressed concern that Boeing was pushing for an unrealistically quick return of the grounded Max. The shutdown in production is likely to ripple through the U.S. economy and Boeing’s vast network of 900 companies that make engines, bodies and other parts for the Max.
Board member Lawrence Kellner, a former United Airlines CEO, will become nonexecutive chairman of the board. In a statement, Kellner said Calhoun has “deep industry experience and a proven track record of strong leadership, and he recognizes the challenges we must confront.”