Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun acknowledged the company’s flaws while answering questions from U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday afternoon after an airborne emergency on an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 jet in January caused widespread alarm.
“I’m here to answer questions. I’m here in the spirit of transparency and I’m here to hold people accountable,” Calhoun told reporters before entering the hearing room.
Senators are expected to question Calhoun about the plane maker’s safety culture and the new whistleblower employee allegations during a hearing that has just begun before the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.
It will be Calhoun’s first time facing questioning from lawmakers and has focused on Boeing’s deteriorating safety reputation and its outgoing CEO, who is expected to step down by the end of the year following a management shakeup.
“This is a culture that puts profits first, pushes boundaries and continues to treat employees with contempt,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal, the committee’s chairman, said of Boeing. “It’s a culture that enables retaliation against those who don’t follow profits. This culture needs to change, and fast.”
Blumenthal said a new whistleblower had come forward after a hearing with the previous whistleblower was held in April.
Blumenthal said Tuesday that Sam Mohawk, a current quality assurance inspector at Boeing’s 737 factory in Renton, Washington, recently told the committee he witnessed a systematic disregard for documentation and accountability for nonconforming parts.
In a report released by the committee ahead of the hearing, Mohawk said the operation of handling non-conforming parts has become “more complex and demanding” since production of the Max resumed following two fatal crashes involving the model in 2020.
He claimed the number of non-compliance reports had soared 300 percent since before the grounding and that the 737 program had lost a part during one inspection that was intentionally hidden from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Mohawk reportedly filed a related lawsuit with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration in June.
Boeing said in a statement that the company is reviewing the allegations it heard on Monday.
“Our top priority is ensuring the safety of our aircraft and passengers, and we continue to encourage employees to report any concerns they may have,” the company said.
Boeing also said it has expanded the size of its quality-control team and “significantly increased the number of inspections per aircraft since 2019.”
While Calhoun acknowledges shortcomings, he seeks to highlight the company’s efforts to improve.
“Much has been said about Boeing’s culture, and we hear those concerns loud and clear. Our culture is far from perfect, but we are taking action and moving forward,” Calhoun said.
Blumenthal called the hearing a “moment of reckoning” for Boeing.
“Boeing needs to stop thinking about the next earnings release and start thinking about the next generation,” Blumenthal said Tuesday.
The plane maker has come under increased scrutiny from regulators and airlines since a door plug on a 737 MAX 9 jet exploded in mid-air on Jan. 5.
The National Transportation Safety Board said four key bolts were missing from an Alaska Airlines plane, and the Department of Justice has opened a criminal investigation into the incident.
Last week, FAA Administrator Michael Whitaker said the agency had been “grossly indifferent” to oversight of Boeing before the Jan. 5 crash. Another senator has also launched an investigation into Boeing.
The company submitted a quality improvement plan to the FAA on May 30 after Whitaker gave Boeing 90 days to develop a comprehensive initiative to address “systemic quality control issues.”
He banned the company from expanding production of the MAX.
Boeing told the Justice Department last week that it was not violating a deferred prosecution agreement following two fatal crashes of its 737 MAX jets, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters.
The DPA was defending the company against criminal charges arising from accidents in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.
