UPDATED 

BOEING OUSTS MUILENBURG, NAMES DAVID CALHOUN AS CEO AMID MAX CRISIS

WAS HE FIRED OR DID HE QUIT?

Sacked Boeing boss could walk away with up to $52m
Dennis Muilenburg will walk away from Boeing with up to $52m (£40m) after resigning following two deadly plane crashes that prompted a safety scandal.

Boeing Reports $8.1B In Cancellations

Boeing Boss Dennis Muilenburg Scolded by FAA, According to Reports

by John Biers

DECEMBER 23, 2019Boeing's 737 MAX has been grounded worldwide since the March 16, 2019 
crash of an Ethiopian airways plane, the second deadly crash of the aircraft, 
which has raised questions about the company's handling of the crisis

Boeing on Monday pushed out its embattled chief executive, Dennis Muilenburg, as it attempts to pivot from a protracted crisis surrounding the grounding of its top-selling 737 MAX after two deadly crashes.

More than nine months after the MAX was grounded and a week after halting production of the aircraft, Boeing named board Chairman David Calhoun as chief executive and president, saying the company needed to "restore confidence" and "repair relationships with regulators, customers and all other stakeholders."

A week ago, Boeing took the monumental step of temporarily shutting down MAX production because of the crisis, which has pushed the aircraft's return to the skies into 2020 and raised the anxiety level among Boeing's workforce and suppliers.

Though coming during the sleepy days ahead of the Christmas holiday, the move was not entirely unexpected after Boeing stripped Muilenburg of his chairman title in October, installing board member Calhoun in that post.

Still, while Boeing watchers had seen Muilenburg's days as numbered, some expected him to stay on until the MAX was returned to service.

But the timing of that landmark event remains unclear and will depend on the Federal Aviation Administration, which has made it clear it is not in a hurry.

An FAA spokesman said the agency does not comment on personnel decisions.

"The FAA continues to follow a thorough process for returning the Boeing 737 MAX to passenger service," the FAA spokesman said. "Our first priority is safety, and we have set no timeframe for when the work will be completed."

Muilenburg repeatedly offered predictions on the 737 MAX return to service that proved overly-optimistic. His prospects further dimmed last week when its Starliner unmanned spacecraft came up short in a NASA mission to reach the International Space Station.

Muilenburg's departure was "long overdue," said former National Transportation Safety Board chief Jim Hall.

"Boeing clearly needs to reset the table and put someone in who puts safety first," Hall told AFP.Boeing selected board chairman David Calhoun (L) to replace Dennis Muilenburg 
as CEO to 'restore confidence' in the company

Another insider?

Shares rallied on the announcement of the leadership shakeup, which came after calls in Congress for Muilenburg to go. The stock price jumped 2.9 percent to finish at $337.55.

But Scott Hamilton of Leeham News, an aviation website, noted that Calhoun had roundly praised Muilenburg's performance as CEO in a November television interview.

The executive has been "part of the Board policy-making that led to the cost-cutting some say had deleterious impact on the development of the MAX," Hamilton wrote.

"Calhoun has been on the board 10 years," he said. "Is Calhoun, an insider, the right person to pull Boeing out of its dive?"

Senator Richard Blumenthal, a Democrat from Connecticut, called for a "complete management house cleaning" at Boeing and new leadership "who will take safety seriously."

Calhoun previously served as vice chairman of General Electric, where he had a long career after starting with the company soon after graduating from Virginia Tech. He also currently serves as senior managing director of investment banking firm Blackstone Group.

Following the announcement, Calhoun reached out to lawmakers, airline CEOs, suppliers, regulators and other key stakeholders, a Boeing spokesman said.

Muilenburg will leave the company immediately but Calhoun will not take the CEO post until January 13, 2020, while he exits existing commitments, Boeing said in a news release.

During that period, Chief Financial Officer Greg Smith will serve as interim CEO. Meanwhile, board member Lawrence W. Kellner will become non-executive chairman of the board effective immediatelyBoeing 737 MAX planes parked in a Washington state airport amid a grounding 
that has dragged on for more than nine months

Awkward response to crisis

Muilenburg's response to the crisis was increasingly criticized as the MAX grounding has dragged on far longer than initially expected as more disturbing details have dribbled out about the certification of the aircraft and issues with the flight software implicated in both crashes.

He also was seen as tone deaf and awkward towards families of the 346 people killed in the crashes.

Michael Stumo, whose daughter Samya was killed in the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March, called Muilenburg's departure "a good first step toward restoring Boeing to a company that focuses on safety and innovation."

"The next step is for several Board members who are underperforming or underqualified to resign," Stumo said.

The company resisted grounding the planes even after the second crash when Muilenburg pressed his case in phone calls with President Donald Trump.

Probes of the two crashes have focused in particular on the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, an automated flight control system.

FAA chief Steve Dickson ripped Muilenburg in October for not disclosing communications from a Boeing pilot that raised questions about the MCAS system.

The FAA also called out the company for its overly-optimistic statements about restoring the MAX saying it created the perception Boeing was trying "to force FAA into taking quicker action."

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SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/2019/10/boeing-board-strips-ceo-of-chairman.html

SEE https://plawiuk.blogspot.com/search?q=boeing 

TheStranger.com
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Investigator says she asked Boeing's CEO who handled panel that blew off a jet. He couldn't help her

The Associated Press
Wed, March 13, 2024



Company CEO David Calhoun, center, watches progress as he waits for the company's IPO to begin trading, Jan. 26, 2011, on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy, the nation’s chief accident investigator, said Wednesday, March 13, 2024, that her agency still doesn’t know who worked on the panel that blew off a jetliner in January and that Boeing’s David CEO Calhoun told her that he couldn’t provide the information because the company has no records about the job. (AP Photo/Richard Drew, File)

The nation’s chief accident investigator said Wednesday that her agency still doesn’t know who worked on the panel that blew off a jetliner in January and that Boeing’s CEO told her that he couldn’t provide the information because the company has no records about the job.

“The absence of those records will complicate the NTSB’s investigation moving forward,” National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy wrote in a letter to a Senate committee that is looking into the Jan. 5 accident on a Boeing 737 Max 9 operated by Alaska Airlines.

Boeing issued a brief statement vowing, as it has many times, to support the investigation.

Homendy told senators last week that the NTSB asked Boeing for security-camera footage that might help identify who worked on the panel in September, but was told the video was overwritten after 30 days — months before the blowout.

Boeing said Wednesday that it's standard company practice to erase video after 30 days.

Homendy's latest letter to the Senate Commerce Committee was a follow-up to her appearance before the panel last week. Shortly after her testimony ended, Boeing provided names of 25 employees who work on doors at the company’s 737 factory near Seattle.

She said, however, the company still hasn’t said which of the workers removed the panel, which plugs a hole left when extra emergency doors are not required on a plane. She said she even called Boeing CEO David Calhoun.

“He stated he was unable to provide that information and maintained that Boeing has no records of the work being performed,” Homendy wrote. Boeing did not comment on the phone call.

There is a drawback to NTSB's focus on identifying specific workers, Homendy conceded. She worried that it could discourage people from talking about the matter with investigators, and so she told her staff to protect the identities of Boeing employees who come forward.

Boeing is unable to provide key information in door plug blowout investigation, NTSB chair says

Gregory Wallace, CNN
Wed, March 13, 2024 

Investigators probing the Boeing 737 Max blowout say their investigation is being held back by Boeing’s lack of a paper trail for key work.

Despite interviewing employees who work at Boeing’s Renton, Washington facility that assembles the 737 Max, as well as collecting other paperwork, the National Transportation Safety Board says it has not determined who in Boeing’s factory worked on the door plug that left the factory with missing bolts and later blew out on an Alaska Airlines passenger flight in January. Boeing recently said it has searched for records but believes its employees did not document the work.

“The absence of those records will complicate the NTSB’s investigation moving forward,” NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy wrote in a letter to the Senate committee that is also probing Boeing.

The letter noted that Boeing has also been unable to provide security footage of the September 2023 work, which included removing and reinstalling the door plug. Homendy told the Senate Commerce Committee last week that her investigators noticed Boeing “security cameras all over the facility,” but that they were told the footage is kept for only 30 days. Boeing told CNN that 30-day record retention policy for security camera footage is standard practice.

The letter revealed that the NTSB’s first request to Boeing for relevant employees’ names came on January 9 — four days after the mid-flight incident. On February 2, the NTSB says Boeing provided “names of individuals who may provide insight regarding the work performed.”

NTSB said it requested another list of names on March 2 as it prepared for a series of interviews with Boeing employees last week.

In this National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) handout, an opening is seen in the fuselage of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 Boeing 737-9 MAX on January 7, 2024 in Portland, Oregon. A door-sized section near the rear of the Boeing 737-9 MAX plane blew off 10 minutes after Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 took off from Portland, Oregon on January 5 on its way to Ontario, California. - Handout/NTSB/Getty ImagesMore

Homendy wrote that the agency is not looking to speak with employees for punitive purposes. “Our only intent is to identify deficiencies and recommend safety improvements so accidents like this never happen again,” she wrote.

Homendy signaled that the back-and-forth with Boeing over the names of specific employees is complicating the investigation and said the NTSB would work to protect employees who come forward.

“I have become increasingly concerned that the focus on the names of individual front-line workers will negatively impact our investigation and discourage such Boeing employees from providing NTSB with information relevant to this investigation,” she wrote. “To that end, I have instructed NTSB to utilize our authority to protect the identities of the door crew and other front-line employees who come forward with information relevant to the investigation.”

Boeing, in response, said it will work with the NTSB to help the probe.

“We will continue supporting this investigation in the transparent and proactive fashion we have supported all regulatory inquiries into this accident,” Boeing said, in a statement.

The committee did not have an immediate comment on the letter.

Boeing Recorded Over Footage of Faulty Door Plug Being Installed on 737 Max 9

Edith Olmsted
Wed, March 13, 2024 

Jason Redmond/AFP via Getty Images

The federal investigation into a loose door plug on a Boeing 737 Air Max 9 which caused a frightening mid-air blow out, has come to yet another standstill as investigators learned that Boeing recorded over security footage of the door plug being installed.

In a letter from Jennifer Homendy, the chair of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board, she detailed the new roadblock in the search for the names of employees who worked on the Alaska Airlines aircraft, which experienced a mid-flight emergency on Jan. 5 when a panel of the fuselage blew out.

“To date, we still do not know who performed the work to open, reinstall, and close the door plug on the accident aircraft,” she wrote in the letter. “Boeing has informed us that they are unable to find the records documenting this work.”

The letter, addressed to Senators Maria Cantwell (D-WA) and Ted Cruz (R-TX), follows up on a Senate hearing Homendy attended last week, at which she said Boeing had not fully cooperated with the NTSB probe, and were withholding key documents.

At the hearing, Homendy said that NTSB investigators were in the process of interviewing employees at a facility in Renton, Washington where Boeing Max planes are assembled. Homendy wrote that after verbally requesting the footage from the facility, investigators were notified that the footage was “overwritten,” meaning that the tape used to record it was reused, and the original footage deleted.

“The absence of those records will complicate the NTSB’s investigation moving forward,” she wrote.

Homendy wrote that she received a general list of employees from the company but had specifically requested the names from Boeing CEO David Calhoun. “He stated he was unable to provide that information and maintained that Boeing has no records of the work being performed,” Homendy wrote.

She wrote that the NTSB was not seeking the list of names for “punitive purposes,” but wanted to interview them about quality assurance processes and safety culture at Boeing.

She wrote that she’d become “increasingly concerned that the focus on the names of individual front-line workers will negatively impact our investigation,” because employees would be too afraid to cooperate with the NTSB.

On Tuesday, Boeing released a memo vowing “immediate actions” to address issues in its manufacturing process.

Boeing security footage related to 737-9 MAX investigation was overwritten, NTSB says

Tyler Slauson

FOX
Wed, March 13, 2024 


SEATTLE - The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said its investigation into the 737-9 MAX door plug fallout has been complicated after Boeing informed the agency that security video investigators requested had been overwritten.

According to the NTSB, they still have not been informed by Boeing who performed maintenance work to open, reinstall and close the door plug that flew off of Alaska Airlines flight 1282 over Oregon on Jan. 5, 2024.

The letter from NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy was sent March 13 to Sen. Maria Cantwell and Sen. Ted Cruz of the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.

"Boeing has informed us that they are unable to find the records documenting this work. A verbal request was made by our investigators for security camera footage to help obtain this information; however, they were informed the footage was overwritten. The absence of those records will complicate the NTSB’s investigation moving forward."

Homendy said the 737-9 plane underwent river repairs at Boeing's Renton, Washington facility in Sept. 2023 before it was delivered to Alaska Airlines.

"The door plug that failed during Alaska 1282’s incident flight was opened so that this rivet repair work could be performed," she said.


The NTSB released these images of investigators inspecting the door plug and the aircraft.(NTSB)

Investigators said on Feb. 2, Boeing provided the names of workers who may have information on who performed maintenance on the door plug.

Homendy said on March 2 investigators requested the names of all employees who reported to the door crew manager in Sept. 2023. When they received the list, it did not identify which employees perform door plug work at the facility. Homendy said she called Boeing Chief Executive Officer David Calhoun and asked for the names of people who performed that work, but he told her Boeing has no records of the work being done.

"It is important to note that the NTSB is not in any way seeking the names of employees who performed the work on the door plug for punitive purposes," Homendy said in the letter. "We want to speak with them to learn about Boeing’s quality-assurance processes and safety culture. Our only intent is to identify deficiencies and recommend safety improvements so accidents like this never happen again. In fact, our nation’s aviation record is so safe precisely because of our well-established culture of non-punitive reporting."

Homendy went on to say that she instructed the NTSB to use its authority to protect any front-line employees who come forward with information regarding the investigation. She encouraged anyone with info to reach out to witness@ntsb.gov.

Boeing provided the following statement to FOX 13 News: "We will continue supporting this investigation in the transparent and proactive fashion we have supported all regulatory inquiries into this accident. We have worked hard to honor the rules about the release of investigative information in an environment of intense interest from our employees, customers, and other stakeholders, and we will continue our efforts to do so."

Boeing promises changes

Responding to a U.S. government audit, Boeing said Tuesday that it would work with employees found to have violated company manufacturing procedures to make sure they understand instructions for their jobs.

The aircraft maker detailed its latest steps to correct lapses in quality in a memo to employees from Stan Deal, president of Boeing's commercial plane division.

The memo went out after the Federal Aviation Administration finished a six-week review of the company's manufacturing processes.

The FAA reviewed 89 aspects of production at Boeing's plant in Renton, Washington, and found the company failed 33 of them, according to a person familiar with the report. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details that have not been publicly released – although they were reported earlier by The New York Times, which saw a slide presentation on the government's audit.

"The vast majority" of violations found by the FAA involved workers not following Boeing’s approved procedures, Deal said in his memo.

Deal said the company will take remedial steps that include "working with each employee noted with a non-compliance during the audit to ensure they fully understand the work instructions and procedures."

Boeing will also add weekly compliance checks for all work teams in the Renton factory, where Max jets are assembled, he said.

Deal acknowledged a recent conclusion by a panel of government and industry experts that found Boeing’s procedures for ensuring safety were too complicated and changed too often.

"Our teams are working to simplify and streamline our processes and address the panel’s recommendations," he told staff.

The day before the blowout on Alaska Airlines flight 1282, engineers and technicians at the airline wanted to remove the plane from service to examine a warning light tied to the plane’s pressurization system, but the airline kept flying the plane and scheduled a maintenance check for late the following night, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Before that could happen, however, a door-plug panel blew off the jet 16,000 feet over Oregon.

Alaska told The Associated Press that the maintenance plan "was in line with all processes and procedures. Nothing required or suggested that the aircraft needed to be pulled from service."

Bret Oestreich, president of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, the union for technicians at Alaska, said there was nothing unusual in Alaska's handling of the matter. He said the warning light does not indicate the location of a possible pressurization issue, and mechanics had been unable to pinpoint a problem after the light tripped on three earlier flights.

The earlier cabin-pressurization warnings caused Alaska to stop using the plane on flights to Hawaii. A few days after the blowout, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said the warnings were unrelated to the accident. A preliminary report pointed to four bolts that were missing after a repair job at the Boeing factory.

Besides the ongoing FAA and NTSB probes, Boeing faces a Justice Department investigation into whether its recent problems — including the Jan. 5 blowout of an emergency door panel from an Alaska Airlines jet that had taken off from Portland, Oregon — violate terms of a settlement the company reached in 2021 to avoid criminal prosecution after two crashes of Max jets in 2018 in Indonesia and 2019 in Ethiopia killed 346 people.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.


Boeing security footage of work on jet with failed door plug is unavailable, NTSB says

Breck Dumas
Wed, March 13, 2024 

Boeing says it cannot find the documentation confirming the September repairs its employees conducted on the 737 Max 9 that had a door plug fly off during an Alaska Airlines flight in January, and claims security footage that might show the work being conducted was "overwritten," the head of the National Transportation Safety Board revealed Wednesday.

NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy wrote in a letter to U.S. senators that the agency still does not know who performed the rivet work on the aircraft, which involved opening, reinstalling and closing the door plug that failed months later.

A plastic sheet covers an area of the fuselage of the Alaska Airlines N704AL Boeing 737 MAX 9 aircraft outside a hangar at Portland International Airport on January 8, 2024 in Portland, Oregon.

"Boeing has informed us that they are unable to find the records documenting this work," Homendy wrote. "A verbal request was made by our investigators for security camera footage to help obtain this information; however, they were informed the footage was overwritten."

The NTSB chief added, "The absence of those records will complicate the NTSB’s investigation moving forward."

UNITED TELLS BOEING TO STOP MAKING THE MAX 10S THE AIRLINE ORDERED: REPORT

Homendy said the NTSB first asked Boeing for information pertaining to the repairs on Jan. 9, days after the door plug failure. Last week, Boeing handed over a list of employees that reported to the door crew manager at the time of the repairs, but did not identify which employees conducted the work.


Dave Calhoun, CEO of Boeing, leaves a meeting with Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va., in Hart Building, on Wednesday, January 24, 2024. Calhoun was meeting with senators about recent safety issues including the grounding of the 737 MAX 9 planes.

"After NTSB received this list, I called Boeing Chief Executive Officer David Calhoun and asked for the names of the people who performed the work," Homendy wrote. "He stated he was unable to provide that information and maintained that Boeing has no records of the work being performed."

When reached by FOX Business for comment, a Boeing official said the company maintains video for a rolling 30-day basis, which they said is consistent with standard practice.

"We will continue supporting this investigation in the transparent and proactive fashion we have supported all regulatory inquiries into this accident," the company said in an official statement.

"We have worked hard to honor the rules about the release of investigative information in an environment of intense interest from our employees, customers, and other stakeholders, and we will continue our efforts to do so." Boeing added.

ALASKA AIRLINES PLANE HAD DOOR PANEL BLOW OUT AHEAD OF SCHEDULED SAFETY CHECK: REPORT

Investigators found that four key bolts were missing from the door plug to the Boeing 737 Max 9 aircraft when it took off from Portland, Oregon, on Jan. 5. The panel blew off at 16,000 feet, which caused the cabin to depressurize before the flight returned safely to Portland International Airport.

The Boeing regional headquarters in Arlington, Virgina, on April 29, 2020.

As a federal probe into Boeing’s safety measures continues, the New York Times reported on Tuesday that on the day before the blowout, some engineers and technicians at Alaska Airlines became concerned over a warning light that indicated an issue with the plane’s pressurization system.

Instead of removing the plane from service, the newspaper reported that the airline decided to continue flying the plane and scheduled a maintenance check for the night of Jan. 5.

The airline told the Associated Press that the warning did not require or suggest that the aircraft needed to be taken out of service, and that its maintenance plan "was in line with all processes and procedures."

FOX Business' Stephen Sorace contributed to this report.

Boeing promises changes after getting poor grades in a government audit of manufacturing quality

DAVID KOENIG AP Airlines Writer,

KIRO 7 News Staff
Tue, March 12, 2024 

Responding to a U.S. government audit, Boeing said Tuesday that it would work with employees found to have violated company manufacturing procedures to make sure they understand instructions for their jobs.

The aircraft maker detailed its latest steps to correct lapses in quality in a memo to employees from Stan Deal, president of Boeing’s commercial plane division.

The memo went out after the Federal Aviation Administration finished a six-week review of the company’s manufacturing processes for the 737 Max jetliner after a panel blew off one of the planes during an Alaska Airlines flight on Jan. 5.

The FAA reviewed 89 aspects of production at Boeing’s plant in Renton, Washington, and found the company failed 33 of them, according to a person familiar with the report. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details that have not been publicly released – although they were reported earlier by The New York Times, which saw a slide presentation on the government’s audit.

“The vast majority” of violations found by the FAA involved workers not following Boeing’s approved procedures, Deal said in his memo.

Deal said the company will take remedial steps that include “working with each employee noted with a non-compliance during the audit to ensure they fully understand the work instructions and procedures.”

Boeing will also add weekly compliance checks for all work teams in the Renton factory, where Max jets are assembled, he said.

Deal acknowledged a recent conclusion by a panel of government and industry experts that found Boeing’s procedures for ensuring safety were too complicated and changed too often.

“Our teams are working to simplify and streamline our processes and address the panel’s recommendations,” he told staff.

The day before the blowout on Alaska Airlines flight 1282, engineers and technicians at the airline wanted to remove the plane from service to examine a warning light tied to the plane’s pressurization system, but the airline kept flying the plane and scheduled a maintenance check for late the following night, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Before that could happen, however, a door-plug panel blew off the jet 16,000 feet (4,800 meters) over Oregon.

Alaska told The Associated Press that the maintenance plan “was in line with all processes and procedures. Nothing required or suggested that the aircraft needed to be pulled from service.”

Bret Oestreich, president of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, the union for technicians at Alaska, said there was nothing unusual in Alaska’s handling of the matter. He said the warning light does not indicate the location of a possible pressurization issue, and mechanics had been unable to pinpoint a problem after the light tripped on three earlier flights.

The earlier cabin-pressurization warnings caused Alaska to stop using the plane on flights to Hawaii. A few days after the blowout, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said the warnings were unrelated to the accident. A preliminary report pointed to four bolts that were missing after a repair job at the Boeing factory.

Besides the ongoing FAA and NTSB probes, Boeing faces a Justice Department investigation into whether its recent problems — including the Jan. 5 blowout of an emergency door panel from an Alaska Airlines jet that had taken off from Portland, Oregon — violate terms of a settlement the company reached in 2021 to avoid criminal prosecution after two crashes of Max jets in 2018 in Indonesia and 2019 in Ethiopia killed 346 people.

Separately on Tuesday, Boeing reported that it received orders for 15 jetliners in February and delivered 27 planes, including two Max jets each to Southwest Airlines and United Airlines. TD Cowen analyst Cai von Rumohr called the deliveries “anemic” but not surprising because of increased FAA scrutiny of the company.

The slowdown in deliveries is putting Boeing farther behind European rival Airbus, which delivered 49 planes last month, and becoming increasingly frustrating for airlines.

Southwest said it might have to reduce its growth, as it now expects to receive fewer Max jets than it planned because of Boeing’s struggles.

Shares of Arlington, Virginia-based Boeing Co. closed Tuesday down more than 4%.

Boeing Deliveries Trail Airbus as 737 Max Crisis Slows Factories

Ryan Beene
Tue, March 12, 2024 


(Bloomberg) -- Boeing Co.’s aircraft deliveries trailed rival Airbus SE’s last month as the US planemaker dealt with the growing fallout from an early-January accident that has since plunged the company into crisis.

Boeing handed over 27 airplanes to customers in February, lagging the 49 notched by Airbus, according to data posted on the US company’s website. Shipments from the US planemaker came in one shy of the same month last year and were in line with the 27 jets it delivered in January.

The showing will likely do little to calm investors as Boeing contends with mounting pressure from US authorities after a fuselage panel blew off a 737 Max 9 operated by Alaska Airlines in early January. Boeing shares have lost more than a quarter of their value this year, the worst performance by far in the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

The Federal Aviation Administration imposed a cap on production of Boeing’s cash-cow 737 Max that will remain in effect until the agency is confident in Boeing’s quality assurances. Those restrictions have rippled out to customers, with Southwest Airlines Co. on Tuesday cutting its 2024 capacity plans because of lower Boeing deliveries, and Alaska Air Group Inc. saying separately that uncertainties around the timing of aircraft deliveries have left its planning in flux.

US prosecutors have convened a grand jury as part of a Justice Department probe of the accident, Bloomberg News reported on Monday. US aviation regulators, meanwhile, continue to closely scrutinize Boeing’s factories as they bolster their oversight of the company’s quality practices in the wake of the mid-air blowout.

Mike Whitaker, FAA’s top official, said Monday that he aims to define milestones with Boeing over the next 30 days, as part of a three-month deadline for the planemaker to show that it has fixed its processes.

Boeing failed 33 of 39 factory audits initiated by the FAA in the wake of the January incident, and its biggest supplier, Spirit AeroSystems Holdings Inc., failed to perform on 7 of 13 audits, the New York Times reported.

The audit report and airlines’ lowered expectations show “more trouble in Renton,” Jefferies analyst Sheila Kahyaoglu wrote note to clients, referring to Boeing’s Seattle-area factory that builds the 737 Max.

Boeing shares slid as much as 4.5% following Monday’s 3% decline. The stock fell 4.2% as of 10:21 a.m. in New York, extending its year-to-date decline to about 29%.

February deliveries included 17 737 Max planes - six to airlines in China — according to Boeing. The company also delivered seven 787 Dreamliner twin-aisle jets last month, with three going to Etihad Airways.

The planemaker logged 15 gross orders, including 10 737 Max jets from customers the company didn’t identify.

MORE BOEING NEWS:

Boeing whistleblower John Barnett found dead days after testifying against company: report

Former Boeing employee files lawsuit alleging sexual assault, harassment after her transition

Boeing could face criminal investigation from the Department of Justice

Boeing confirms it’s in talks to buy Spirit AeroSystems, its key supplier on the troubled 737 Max

Boeing given 90 days by FAA to come up with a plan to improve safety and quality of manufacturing

Boeing promises changes after getting poor grades in a government audit of manufacturing quality

DAVID KOENIG
Updated Tue, March 12, 2024 

IAM Says Contract Negotiations For Iam Members At Boeing In The Pacific Northwest Begun


Responding to a U.S. government audit, Boeing said Tuesday that it would work with employees found to have violated company manufacturing procedures to make sure they understand instructions for their jobs.

The aircraft maker detailed its latest steps to correct lapses in quality in a memo to employees from Stan Deal, president of Boeing's commercial plane division.

The memo went out after the Federal Aviation Administration finished a six-week review of the company's manufacturing processes for the 737 Max jetliner after a panel blew off one of the planes during an Alaska Airlines flight on Jan. 5.

The FAA reviewed 89 aspects of production at Boeing's plant in Renton, Washington, and found the company failed 33 of them, according to a person familiar with the report. The person spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss details that have not been publicly released – although they were reported earlier by The New York Times, which saw a slide presentation on the government's audit.

“The vast majority” of violations found by the FAA involved workers not following Boeing’s approved procedures, Deal said in his memo.

Deal said the company will take remedial steps that include “working with each employee noted with a non-compliance during the audit to ensure they fully understand the work instructions and procedures.”

Boeing will also add weekly compliance checks for all work teams in the Renton factory, where Max jets are assembled, he said.

Deal acknowledged a recent conclusion by a panel of government and industry experts that found Boeing’s procedures for ensuring safety were too complicated and changed too often.

“Our teams are working to simplify and streamline our processes and address the panel’s recommendations,” he told staff.

The day before the blowout on Alaska Airlines flight 1282, engineers and technicians at the airline wanted to remove the plane from service to examine a warning light tied to the plane’s pressurization system, but the airline kept flying the plane and scheduled a maintenance check for late the following night, The New York Times reported Tuesday. Before that could happen, however, a door-plug panel blew off the jet 16,000 feet (4,800 meters) over Oregon.

Alaska told The Associated Press that the maintenance plan “was in line with all processes and procedures. Nothing required or suggested that the aircraft needed to be pulled from service.”

Bret Oestreich, president of the Aircraft Mechanics Fraternal Association, the union for technicians at Alaska, said there was nothing unusual in Alaska's handling of the matter. He said the warning light does not indicate the location of a possible pressurization issue, and mechanics had been unable to pinpoint a problem after the light tripped on three earlier flights.

The earlier cabin-pressurization warnings caused Alaska to stop using the plane on flights to Hawaii. A few days after the blowout, National Transportation Safety Board Chair Jennifer Homendy said the warnings were unrelated to the accident. A preliminary report pointed to four bolts that were missing after a repair job at the Boeing factory.

Besides the ongoing FAA and NTSB probes, Boeing faces a Justice Department investigation into whether its recent problems — including the Jan. 5 blowout of an emergency door panel from an Alaska Airlines jet that had taken off from Portland, Oregon — violate terms of a settlement the company reached in 2021 to avoid criminal prosecution after two crashes of Max jets in 2018 in Indonesia and 2019 in Ethiopia killed 346 people.

Separately on Tuesday, Boeing reported that it received orders for 15 jetliners in February and delivered 27 planes, including two Max jets each to Southwest Airlines and United Airlines. TD Cowen analyst Cai von Rumohr called the deliveries “anemic” but not surprising because of increased FAA scrutiny of the company.

The slowdown in deliveries is putting Boeing farther behind European rival Airbus, which delivered 49 planes last month, and becoming increasingly frustrating for airlines.

Southwest said it might have to reduce its growth, as it now expects to receive fewer Max jets than it planned because of Boeing's struggles.

Shares of Arlington, Virginia-based Boeing Co. closed Tuesday down more than 4%.

Boeing will add compliance checks, equipment audits at 737 factory, memo says

David Shepardson
Tue, March 12, 2024 

 An aerial photo shows Boeing 737 MAX airplanes parked on the tarmac at the Boeing Factory in Renton



By David Shepardson

(Reuters) - Boeing is adding weekly compliance checks for every 737 work area and additional audits of equipment to reduce quality problems, the company said in a memo to employees on Tuesday.

The memo from Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO Stan Deal following the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration's six-week audit of Boeing's 737 MAX manufacturing processes that faulted numerous company processes. The FAA has curbed Boeing production following the mid-air panel blowout on a new Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 jet on January 5.

"Our teams are working to simplify and streamline our processes and address the panel’s recommendations," the memo said, noting that employees have to focus on looking out for safety hazards and follow manufacturing processes precisely. "We will not hesitate in stopping a production line or keeping an airplane in position."

The memo comes a day after FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker disclosed details of the audit found numerous quality issues and the planemaker must have employees "have the right tools and training, having the right engineering drawings and assembling the aircraft in the proper order ... It's really plant floor hygiene."

Deal said FAA inspectors went deep into the 737 Renton factories in January and February to audit production and quality control and found the "vast majority of our audit non-compliances involved not following our approved processes and procedures."

The weekly compliance checks for 737 work sites start March 1 and Boeing is dedicating time in each shift for mechanics to complete compliance and foreign object debris sweeps.

Boeing is also auditing all toolboxes and removing any tools not fully compliant and will conduct additional 737 program audits to ensure full compliance.

Deal said workers must "precisely follow every step of our manufacturing procedures and processes. These have been designed to ensure conformance to specifications and compliance to regulatory requirements."

Deal also said with Spirit AeroSystems Boeing has "implemented additional inspection points at their facility in Wichita. As such, starting March 1, teams there have been ensuring first-pass quality before any fuselages are shipped to Renton."

(Reporting By David Shepardson and David Gaffen; Editing by Franklin Paul and Nick Zieminski)

Boeing’s legal woes are becoming a problem for the entire airline industry

Alexis Keenan ·Reporter
Wed, March 13, 2024 

Boeing’s (BA) legal problems are mounting. They are starting to become a problem for the rest of the airline industry too.

Alaska Airlines (ALK) said Tuesday its 2024 capacity estimates are "in flux" due to federal scrutiny of Boeing. United Airlines (UAL) said it asked Boeing to stop building planes not yet certified by the FAA. Southwest Airlines (LUV) said it cut its capacity forecast, citing fewer Boeing deliveries than expected.

"Boeing needs to become a better company,” Southwest Airlines CEO Bob Jordan said Tuesday as his company's stock dropped nearly 15%.

Southwest Airlines talked Tuesday about how its business is being affected by the problems of Boeing and its stock dropped nearly 15%. (Matt York/AP Photo, File) (ASSOCIATED PRESS)

Boeing's challenges are a problem for major airlines "because they can’t grow as much as they originally thought," Helane Becker, a TD Cowen senior research analyst, said on Yahoo Finance Live Tuesday. She predicted the airlines will do “what they always do, which is adapt.”

Boeing’s increased exposure to aircraft delivery delays and legal risks is spooking its own investors, too. Its stock fell 4.5% Tuesday after the New York Times revealed details of an FAA audit that followed an accident involving a door “plug” on an Alaska 737 Max-9 flight on Jan. 5.

The incident unleashed widened regulatory scrutiny and temporarily grounded Boeing's 737 Max 9 planes in the US. The Department of Justice has reportedly also recently launched an investigation into the incident.

An investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) found that four bolts meant to fasten the Alaska door plug in place were missing and likely not installed at the time the aircraft was delivered to the airline.

The FAA audit, according to the New York Times, found that Boeing's Max production practices failed 33 of the FAA’s 89 quality control requirements. Boeing’s supplier Spirit AeroSystems, which makes the fuselage for the Max aircraft family, failed seven of the regulator’s 14 audit checks.

Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Stan Deal said in a memo to employees Tuesday that "the vast majority" of the noncompliances in the audit "involved not following our approved processes and procedures."

The Alaska Airlines blowout in January led dozens of passengers on board the flight to file lawsuits against Boeing.

Those passengers are seeking punitive damages — meant solely to punish Boeing for the alleged production lapses — plus damages to compensate them for their alleged physical and emotional injuries, including stress, anxiety, trauma, PTSD, and hearing damage.

“Boeing’s current and former CEO and senior leadership have prioritized profits and share price over the safety of the flying public despite repeated design, manufacturing, production, testing, and systemic quality-control issues and defects with the Boeing 737 Max aircraft,” Mark Lindquist, a lawyer who sued Boeing on behalf of 26 of those Alaska Airlines passengers, said.
The long legal road ahead

Past history suggests it will take years to untangle all of the legal challenges. Boeing, after all, has faced a mountain of litigation and government investigations before.

A prior round of trouble for Boeing began in 2018 and 2019 with two crashes of Max-8 jets operated by Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines. Dozens of lawsuits followed.

Families of victims who died in the crashes alleged Boeing had recklessly installed and failed to fully inform pilots about a new anti-stall system on its 737 Max-8 planes called “MCAS” (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System).

Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun. (Aaron Schwartz/NurPhoto via Getty Images) (NurPhoto via Getty Images)

Boeing shareholders sued, waging similar claims. Once federal authorities confirmed that the MCAS system played a role in both crashes, the Justice Department filed criminal charges against Boeing, accusing the company of criminally defrauding the FAA.

To avoid liability, Boeing entered a deferred prosecution agreement in January 2021. The agreement requires it to compensate airlines and victims’ families and steer clear of reporting and transparency lapses for three years.

The agreement is suspected to have piqued the DOJ's attention again. On Sunday, the Wall Street Journal reported the department had opened a criminal investigation into the Alaska blowout.
Other headaches

Boeing’s current troubles extend to other aircraft too. In February, pilots for United Airlines reported that a 737 Max-8’s controls jammed during a landing at New Jersey’s Newark airport. A federal investigation into the incident is now underway.

In another report in February, the FAA documented that de-icing equipment installed on 737 Max and 787 Dreamliner aircraft could decrease engine thrust.

Compounding the bad news, a 787 Dreamliner flying from Australia to New Zealand and operated by LATAM plummeted during a flight this week. Roughly 50 passengers are said to have reported injuries with one passenger in serious condition.

What caused the drop in altitude is not yet known. According to Reuters, passengers said one of the aircraft’s pilots communicated that he had temporarily lost control.

Alexis Keenan is a legal reporter for Yahoo Finance. Follow Alexis on Twitter @alexiskweed.


'We all need Boeing to be better': Airline bosses are getting annoyed that Boeing's problems are derailing their plans

Pete Syme
Wed, March 13, 2024 

A Boeing 737 Max.JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images

Boeing's 737 Max 10 and Max 7 jets are yet to be certified by regulators.


United Airlines has taken the Max 10 out of its plans, even with 277 on order.


"We all need Boeing to be better," said Southwest's CEO.

Boeing's troubles are disrupting airlines' plans to grow capacity as the planemaker suffers from delays.

The 737 Max 10 and Max 7, the longest and shortest version of Boeing's narrowbody jet, are yet to be certified by regulators.

Increased scrutiny of Boeing's processes following January's Alaska Airlines blowout has made the pathway harder. Boeing withdrew a safety-exemption request for the Max 7 in the wake of the incident, pushing the certification timeline further back.

Bloomberg reported that several airline chiefs had similar stories about delays as they spoke at a JPMorgan conference on Tuesday.

Scott Kirby, United's CEO, said he'd told Boeing to stop building Max 10s for the carrier because of uncertainty about when it will be certified, per Bloomberg.

The airline's chief financial officer, Mike Leskinen, said last month United is "deeply disappointed" in Boeing due to the delays. He said that instead of the Max 10, United would have more Max 9 and Airbus A321neo jets, per Reuters.

United — which is Boeing's biggest customer — has 277 Max 10 jets on order with options for another 200, Leskinen said in its fourth-quarter earnings call in January.

The delays create problems for United's plan to expand its capacity with 800 new jets by 2032.

During the JPMorgan conference, Delta CEO Ed Bastian said deliveries for its Max 10 jets could come as late as 2027, Bloomberg reported.

And Southwest said it doesn't expect to receive any of its 737 Max 7 aircraft this year, per the outlet. It reportedly expected 79 jets overall this year, but will now receive 46.

Last month, Southwest announced it will suspend all new pilot hiring after March 31 due to the production delays, Simple Flying reported.

"We all need Boeing to be stronger two years from now, five years from now, 10 years from now," Southwest CEO Bob Jordan said, per Bloomberg. "That takes precedent over delivery delays. We all need Boeing to be better."

Following the blowout, the Federal Aviation Administration has prevented Boeing from expanding production of the Max — capped at 38 jets a month until the regulator is satisfied Boeing is following all the rules for quality control.

The American manufacturer delivered 27 jets last month, compared to Airbus' 49.

But the European planemaker's backlog means there aren't enough delivery slots for would-be customers to switch over from Boeing.

A Boeing spokesperson told Business Insider: "We are squarely focused on implementing changes to strengthen quality across our production system and taking the necessary time to deliver high-quality airplanes that meet all regulatory requirements. We continue to stay in close contact with our valued customers about these issues and our actions to address them."

The Boeing 737 Max tragedy is a cautionary tale of cost-cutting corporate hubris

Bob Kustra

Sun, February 6, 2022, 

In 2018 in Indonesia and in 2019 in Ethiopia, pilots of two brand new Boeing 737 Max jet planes lost complete control of their planes and crashed, killing a total of 346 passengers and crew.

The Max was to be the latest version of the 737, often the workhorse of airlines. Tragically, the new 737 Max was built to fail. An important piece of its software would override pilots’ efforts to stabilize the plane, causing the two crashes with no survivors.

How could this happen to a corporation so steeped in the successful engineering and building of iconic airplanes like the 757 jumbo jet?

That’s what I asked author Peter Robison recently when I interviewed him at Reader’s Corner for his book, “Flying Blind: The 737 Max Tragedy and the Fall of Boeing.” His answer: corporate hubris that blew up a culture focused on engineering excellence and replaced it with a bottom-line culture where the focus included cutting budgets on traditional Boeing priorities like pilot training, flight simulators to train pilots, an electronic checklist for pilots and research to improve safety.

It started with Harry Stonecipher, the McDonnell Douglas CEO, a defense contractor expert at cutting budgets to win contracts, who took the reins at Boeing when the two companies merged.

Stonecipher and CEOs who followed him from General Electric’s Jack Welch school of management applied what author Peter Robison calls Welch’s standard corporate playbook: ”anti-union, regulation-light, outsourcing heavy.”

Later, Boeing decided to move its corporate headquarters to Chicago, encouraged by tax incentives from the state of Illinois and the city of Chicago. Critics claimed Boeing’s corporate chieftains place short-term profits ahead of engineering excellence as they left behind in Seattle the daily operations of Boeing and the accountability that accompanies a proximity to manufacturing. It also moved some of its manufacturing to South Carolina, a non-union state.

As usual in corporate America, those in the executive suites of Boeing were spared the cutbacks that research, safety protocols and employees suffered at the hands of these modern-day Scrooges. Boeing CEOs made out like bandits, and Boeing shareholders did, as well.

While engineers were forced to cut back, Boeing executives bought back its company stock, thereby increasing its price and enriching shareholders. According to Robison, Boeing spent $41.5 billion on stock buybacks from 2013 to 2018. Its CEOs walked away with millions in cash the buybacks generated.

Boeing’s board members didn’t do badly either, considering that the board caught none of this steady cultural drift toward deadly blunders. Board member Caroline Kennedy, the daughter of President John F. Kennedy, made a cool $800,000 from 2017 to 2019, while Kenneth Duberstein, onetime chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan, pulled down $5.3 million.

Boeing built a lobbying team in Washington second to none. According to Open Secrets, a comprehensive resource for campaign contributions, lobbying data and analysis, in 2019 alone, Boeing spent $13 million and employed more than 106 lobbyists including some of the most politically connected law firms in D.C.

The passengers of those two deadly flights didn’t have a chance, given heavy lobbying by Boeing in D.C.

Boeing “captured” the agency charged with regulating the company and the airlines. The Federal Aviation Administration not only loosened its rules that would ultimately impact a safety focus at the company, but it also stripped the agency of some of its regulatory authority and transferred it to Boeing personnel. (It would be like the FDA handing over its meat inspection to pork producers.)

This most egregious and blatant misuse of regulation would cost loss of lives, the airline’s reputation and its bottom-line on which it was so focused. In 2020 alone, Boeing lost $11.9 billion, according to Robison.

The immediate cause of the two crashes was software more powerful than what Boeing claimed in documents submitted to win the plane’s approval by the FAA. In underestimating the software’s ability to move the horizontal stabilizer, the small stabilizer on the plane’s tail, Boeing’s supposed processes to catch issues like this failed. Airlines and pilots in the industry claimed that Boeing had hidden the existence of the potentially deadly software.

After the two crashes, the FAA, sometimes referred to it as the “tombstone” agency because it only acts when people are dead, delivered on its loyalty to Boeing by deferring the decision to ground the 737 Max.

First, it was China that grounded the Max, followed by other nations, but the FAA took its time, waiting three days after the two crashes before ordering the 737 Max from the skies. Since these two crashes occurred in other countries, there were initial charges that foreign pilot error was to blame. When the 737 Max was finally grounded, investigations showed that pilot error was not the problem. Boeing software was!

Boeing did show just how quickly it can act when its self-interest is at stake.

After the Indonesian crash, agents of Boeing and Lion Air, the Indonesian carrier, were there at the Jakarta airport offering families “blood money” of $91,600 in exchange for the release of liability in any global court — a mere pittance to what could be awarded for the wrongful death of a loved one. Seventy of the victims’ families signed the settlement offer. In contrast, just last November, Boeing agreed to a settlement in a lawsuit filed against the company and its board for more than $230 million. The lawsuit accused Boeing and its board of failure to address safety warning signs before the two Max jetliners crashed.

The aftermath of the crashes produced a mixed bag of results.

Congress did return to the FAA the authority to regulate Boeing that those expensive lobbyists and legislators shifted to the company. The company corrected the software issues, but the 737 Max remains the only large commercial airliner without an electronic checklist in the cockpit to guide pilots. Eventually the FAA returned the 737 Max to the skies. Boeing also called a halt to those generous stock buybacks that ate up cash that could have been used to build planes, catch software errors and invest in research.

Who was ultimately held responsible for the deaths of 346 passengers and crew?

As is too often the case, criminal liability skated past Boeing’s executive offices and boardroom and landed down the chain of command on Boeing’s chief technical pilot who was indicted for lying about the flight control software that claimed so many lives. One lawsuit filed by shareholders against current and former Boeing directors was settled for $225M and Boeing agreed to a legal settlement with the Justice Department for $2.5 billion, thereby resolving a criminal charge that Boeing conspired to defraud the FAA.

After reading Flying Blind, the reader would expect some form of criminal liability like manslaughter to be imposed on CEOs at the controls as Boeing veered off course. No such thing happened, but two months after the Indonesian crash, the Boeing board would award the CEO on duty at the time, Dennis Muilenburg, a record-breaking salary of $31M including $13M bonus for performance.

The CEOs before Muilenburg who changed the culture and downplayed safety concerns also got off scot free. Robison reports on their post-Boeing lives of luxury thanks to their generous salaries and stock options. After learning of the Justice Department’s settlement of Boeing’s fraud conspiracy, Robison quotes one Boeing pilot as concluding, “Boeing got away with murder.”

Bob Kustra served as president of Boise State University from 2003 to 2018. He is host of Reader’s Corner on Boise State Public Radio and is a regular columnist for the Idaho Statesman. He served two terms as Illinois lieutenant governor and 10 years as a state legislator.