Senators question Boeing CEO on whistleblower retaliation, ‘broken’ safety culture

Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun faced bipartisan heat Tuesday as he sat for his first congressional testimony nearly six months after the door cap of a Boeing 737 Max 9 exploded during a Alaska Airlines flight in January.

Calhoun, who announced in March that he was resigning at the end of the year, sought to assure senators that his company was serious about improving its safety and quality practices amid ongoing investigations into the Department of Justice and federal regulators.

Two out of three planes flying in the United States are Boeing planes, Calhoun pointed out, and the aircraft manufacturer receives billions of dollars each year from the federal government, with the lion’s share coming from the Department of Defense.

“We are here because we want Boeing to succeed. Boeing must succeed for the sake of the jobs it creates, for the sake of the local economies it supports, for the sake of the American traveling public, for the sake of our military,” the senator said. Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut), who chairs the Senate Permanent Investigations Subcommittee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs that held the hearing.

But Blumenthal’s office released new whistleblower allegations Tuesday morning that the senator said raise concerns about Boeing’s commitment to making promised changes.

Sam Mohawk, a Boeing quality assurance inspector, alleged that the company mishandled the defective parts, that the parts were likely installed on planes including the 737 Max, and that the company retaliated against him when he expressed his concerns.

“The 737 program was losing hundreds of non-compliant parts,” Mohawk said in a memo to Senate subcommittee members. Mohawk filed a complaint detailing the allegations with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration on June 11.

Other whistleblowers appeared before the Senate subcommittee in April to detail allegations of security issues and a culture of silence and corner cutting within the organization.

Sam Salehpour, another Boeing quality engineer, testified at the hearing that the fuselage pieces of Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner were not properly fused, which could cause the plane to open in flight after a period of extended time.

Senator Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), ranking member of the subcommittee, said he was “disappointed” that major airline customers of Boeing refused to testify before the committee to explain their quality and maintenance systems to reassure the American public.

Boeing presented its plan last month to improve its safety culture and quality assurance and measure improvements to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The plan called for an additional 300 hours of training, quality inspections and approvals of 737 fuselages before they were shipped to suppliers and more time for managers to be present in the factory.

When Sen. Laphonza Butler (D-Calif.) asked Calhoun how he planned to build confidence in Boeing’s leadership to cement these changes, Calhoun said the company was celebrating “people who provide us with information that helps our operations” but that she had “a long way to go”. , and we must continue to work on this.

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) asked Calhoun exactly what he did to earn his $32.8 million annual salary, pointing out that the executive’s compensation jumped 45% between 2022 and 2023.

When Hawley asked Calhoun why he didn’t resign, the embattled CEO said, “I stand by that.” »

“I’m proud of every action we’ve taken,” Calhoun added.

“Wow. Well, there’s news for you,” Hawley said after the heated exchange.

Blumenthal, a former prosecutor, also got “really angry” when Calhoun denied that Boeing employees knew about problems with the flight stabilization maneuvering characteristics augmentation system that led to crashes high-profile fatalities of the Boeing 737 Max 8 in 2018 and 2019.

“The evidence shows, in fact, that the engineers working on this airplane knew that this faulty control system caused the dive under certain circumstances,” Blumenthal said.

“Lion Air and Ethiopian Air had difficulty raising that nose when the plane was plummeting towards the sea, and they couldn’t do it because they didn’t know what was happening,” added Blumenthal, referring to the crashes in 2018 and 2019. “And the reason they didn’t know what was going on is because Boeing hid it. They hid it from the FAA.

The Justice Department filed charges against Boeing in 2021 for allegedly conspiring to defraud the United States, but the prosecution was postponed after Boeing paid a $2.5 billion fine.

Calhoun apologized to family members of victims who died in the 2018 and 2019 crashes at the start of the hearing.

“I want to apologize personally, on behalf of everyone at Boeing. We are deeply sorry for your losses. Nothing is more important than the safety of the people who board our planes. Every day, we seek to honor the memory of those lost through an unwavering commitment to safety and quality,” Calhoun said.

The Justice Department said last month that Boeing violated the deferred prosecution agreement “by failing to design, implement and enforce a compliance and ethics program designed to prevent and detect violations of U.S. fraud laws throughout its operations.”

The company hit back, saying: “We believe we have honored the terms of this agreement. » Federal prosecutors said they would let the court know how they wanted to proceed by July 7.

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