Boeing chief prepared to admit ‘mistakes’ on 737 Max
Boeing chief executive Dennis Muilenburg was due to start the first of two congressional hearings yesterday by recognising that the world’s biggest aerospace company made mistakes with its now-grounded 737 Max jet.
Mr Muilenburg was set to testify before the US Senate Committee on Commerce, Science and Transportation yesterday and is due to appear today before the US House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure to speak about the aircraft model that killed 346 people in two crashes.
“We have learnt and are still learning from these accidents,” Mr Muilenburg was ready to tell the Senate yesterday, according to pre-written comments released by Boeing in advance. “We know we made mistakes and got some things wrong. We own that, and we are fixing them.”
Mr Muilenburg, who was stripped of his chairman position earlier this month, will become the first Boeing official to testify publicly on the company’s role in the tragedies of the Ethiopian Air and Lion Air crashes. The incidents damaged the flying public’s confidence in the jet, disrupted global airline operations and raised questions on the jet’s certification and design. Resting on Mr Muilenburg’s testimony are the aerospace giant’s reputation amid heightened scrutiny from investors and regulators.
Boeing has made improvements to the 737 Max, including changes to its flight control software implicated in both crashes, to “ensure that accidents like these never happen again”, he said.
Mr Muilenburg said that the two crashes involved the repeated activation of the flight control software, called MCAS, which responded to erroneous signals from a sensor that measures the airplane’s angle of attack. Software changes on the MCAS will ensure it cannot be activated based on signals from a single sensor and cannot be activated repeatedly.
The process of returning the plane to service “has taken longer than we originally expected, but we’re committed to getting it right”, he said. “Return-to-service timing is completely dependent on answering each and every question from the Federal Aviation Administration.”
Boeing has flown more than 814 test flights with the updated software and conducted simulator sessions with 545 participants from 99 customers and 41 global regulators.
By the time the Max returns to the skies it will be “one of the safest airplanes ever to fly”, the chief executive said.
The company repeatedly said it expects the Max grounding to be lifted by the fourth quarter of this year.
He added that “regulators around the world should approve the return of the Max to the skies only after they have applied the most rigorous scrutiny, and are completely satisfied as to the plane’s safety”.
“The flying public deserves nothing less,” he said.
The executive acknowledged the Max ban’s impact on the aviation industry and travellers worldwide.
“We know the grounding of the Max is hurting our airline customers, their pilots and flight attendants, and most importantly, the people who fly on our airplanes,” he said.
Mr Muilenburg’s testimony coincides with the one-year anniversary of the first 737 Max crash, a Lion Air jet that dived into the Java Sea off the coast of Indonesia minutes after take-off.
Despite admitting to mistakes with the Max, the executive insisted the company is also “learning deeper lessons that will result in improvements in the design of future airplanes”.
Boeing has made improvements to the 737 Max, including changes to its flight control software implicated in both crashes