Boeing CEO David Calhoun faced questions from lawmakers on Tuesday about the aerospace giant's safety and manufacturing practices. panel has been blown off a 737 Max on an Alaska Airlines flight in January.
Calhoun told the Senate investigative subcommittee that Boeing's culture is “far from perfect” but said the company is “doing everything we can to ensure that every employee feels empowered to speak up when there is a problem.” . He also said Boeing is working to improve “transparency and accountability, while increasing employee engagement.”
Calhoun, CEO of Boeing since January 2020, prefaced his remarks by standing and addressing family members present among those who died in two 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019. “We are deeply committed to their memory committed to focusing on safety. Once again, I'm sorry,” the director said as several people held up photos of those who died.
Complicating the executive branch's task, the Senate panel on Tuesday released information from two additional Boeings whistleblowers that have surfaced recently and raised concerns about the company's practices.
One, current Boeing employee Sam Mohawk, alleged in a statement released by the subcommittee that “Boeing improperly documents, tracks and stores parts that are damaged or otherwise out of specification, and that those parts are likely to be used on aircraft installed.” He also alleged that his supervisors instructed him to withhold evidence from the Federal Aviation Administration, the Senate subcommittee said.
The second whistleblower, who is anonymous, alleged to the subcommittee that Boeing attempted to eliminate independent quality inspections but instead tapped employees to inspect their own work and that of their colleagues.
“This is a culture that continues to prioritize profits, push boundaries and ignore its employees,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, a Connecticut Democrat and a Boeing critic who also chairs the subcommittee, said in a statement Tuesday. “A culture where those who speak out are silenced and sidelined, while the blame is shifted to the factory floor.”
In a statement to CBS News, Boeing said it received information about the new whistleblowers on Monday evening and was reviewing their claims. “We continually encourage employees to report any concerns as our priority is to ensure the safety of our aircraft and the flying public,” the company said.
Boeing denied claims earlier this year that it had reduced the number of safety inspectors.
“In January 2019, a senior quality manager came from Boeing told The Seattle Times reported that the company planned to reduce the role of inspectors in its quality organization by 900 people and reform the way it conducts quality checks by integrating technology and monitoring into the secondary inspection process. However, Boeing has not reduced these inspector roles, has expanded our quality team and has significantly increased the number of inspections per aircraft since 2019,” the company said in a statement at the time.
Boeing announced in March that Calhoun, who was appointed CEO in January 2020, would resign from that role by the end of the year.
Whistleblowers claim
In a Senate Report Regarding the whistleblower's claims, Mohawk claims that when Boeing restarted production of the 737 Max after two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019, there was “a 300% increase” in reports of parts not meeting the company's standards. manufacturer.
While hundreds of non-compliant parts were to be removed from production and closely monitored, “Mohawk feared that non-compliant parts were being installed on the 737s and could lead to a catastrophic event,” the report said.
The document states that Mohawk also claims that when Boeing learned of an upcoming FAA inspection last June, many parts were moved to another location to “intentionally conceal improperly stored parts from the FAA.”
In April, Boeing whistleblowersincluding Sam Salehpour, a quality engineer at the company, testified to lawmakers.
“Despite what Boeing officials say publicly, there is no safety culture at Boeing, and employees like me who speak out about flaws in manufacturing operations and lack of quality control are ignored, marginalized, threatened, sidelined and worse,” he told the members of an investigative panel of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.
Boeing has denied Salehpour's allegations and defended the safety of its planes, including the Dreamliner.
Boeing's deadly Max crashes
No one was seriously injured in the Alaska Airlines incident, but the incident raised new concerns about the company's best-selling commercial aircraft. The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration conduct separate investigations.
“From the beginning, we have taken responsibility and worked transparently with the NTSB and the FAA,” Calhoun said in his remarks before the hearing. He defended the the company's safety culture. “We are taking comprehensive action today to strengthen safety and quality.”
Blumenthal has heard that before, when Boeing was reeling from the deadly Max crashes in 2018 in Indonesia and 2019 in Ethiopia.
“Five years ago, Boeing made a commitment to overhaul its safety practices and culture. That promise proved empty, and the American people deserve an explanation,” Blumenthal said at the time announced the hearing. He called Calhoun's testimony a necessary step for Boeing to regain public trust.
Calhoun's appearance would also take place as the Justice is considering whether Boeing should be prosecuted for violating the terms of a settlement after the fatal crashes.
Calhoun will leave his position at the end of this year when a new CEO is appointed.
—With reporting by Kris Van Cleave, Kate Gibson and Associated Press.
