New York CNN –
Boeing CEO David Calhoun acknowledged the company's “mistake” after the Alaska Airlines incident at an employee-wide “safety meeting” on Tuesday.
“We're going to address this number one and admit our mistake,” Calhoun told employees, according to a partial readout of the meeting shared with CNN. “We will approach this with 100% and complete transparency every step of the way. We will work with the NTSB, which is investigating the accident itself, to determine the cause.”
A company source told CNN that Boeing believes “the error in question” arose in the aircraft manufacturing supply chain. However, it was not immediately clear whether Calhoun identified a specific error during the presentation.
On Friday, an Alaska Airlines plane carrying 177 passengers made an emergency landing shortly after takeoff from Portland, Oregon, after part of the wall of a weeks-old 737 Max 9 plane came loose, leaving a gaping hole the side of the plane. On Saturday, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered most Boeing 737 Max 9 planes to be temporarily grounded as regulators and Boeing investigate the cause of the incident. The order applies to around 171 aircraft worldwide.
Notably, no one was killed or seriously injured in Friday's mid-flight accident. The accident was partially captured on frightening video clips by fellow passengers.
The source said the meeting also included a reminder of the seriousness of the situation. Employees were told that the company's chief safety officer was now in charge of the 737 Max fleet, the source said. Mike Delaney is Boeing's chief aerospace safety officer.
The meeting, held at noon Pacific time at the 737 Max factory in Renton, Washington, also included an expression of confidence in “Boeing, the aircraft and (Boeing's) employees,” the source said.
The source added that the meeting praised the actions of the flight crew as well as Alaska Airlines for its handling of the situation.
The company promised to work with the FAA to ensure proper inspections are carried out. On Tuesday, the FAA said Boeing's plan to inspect door plugs on 737 Max 9 aircraft would need to be revised and the plane would remain grounded in the meantime.
“Boeing submitted an initial version of the instructions yesterday, which they are now revising based on feedback received,” the FAA said in a statement. “Upon receipt of the revised version of Boeing’s instructions, the FAA will conduct a thorough review.”
During the meeting, Boeing also promised to work with the NTSB to find out what happened, the source said.
02:08 – Source: CNN
Investigators viewed the plane, part of which was lost during the flight. Hear what they found
Calhoun appeared to address some of the images taken from the accident during his speech to employees Tuesday, including some that showed a gaping hole in the side of the plane.
“When I got that picture, all I could think about was this: I didn't know what happened, so I didn't know whoever was sitting in the seat next to that hole in the plane,” Calhoun said. “I have children, I have grandchildren and so do you. This stuff is important. Every detail counts.”
Regarding the ongoing investigation, Calhoun added that he “trusts[s] Every step they take will have a result.”
The accident is now also attracting the attention of lawmakers. In a statement Tuesday, Sen. JD Vance called on the Senate Commerce Committee to convene a hearing to “assess incidents involving the 737 MAX, Boeing's engineering and safety standards, and the quality of oversight by the FAA and other relevant government agencies.” ”
“I hope that such a hearing will take place as soon as possible,” added Vance, a Republican from Ohio.
President Joe Biden is personally pursuing the grounding of many Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes for inspection following the dramatic emergency landing of the Alaska Airlines flight last week, the White House said Tuesday, while the investigation continues.
The White House is “relieved” that all passengers and crew on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 are safe, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said, noting that the plane will remain grounded until the FAA operators had “completed enhanced inspections.”
What exactly led to a refrigerator-sized hole suddenly bursting in the passenger plane on Friday is still being investigated. A preliminary report is expected in three to four weeks, said Eric Weiss, spokesman for the National Transportation Safety Board.
The NTSB said Monday evening that it was continuing to recover objects that had flown from the aircraft. On Sunday, a Portland teacher found a piece of plane fuselage that had landed in his backyard and contacted the agency. Two cellphones, believed to have been thrown from the hole in the plane, were also found in a yard and on the side of the road and handed over to investigators.
NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy also told reporters over the weekend that Alaska Airlines had banned the planes involved in the incident from flying over the ocean earlier Friday after the plane's automatic pressure control warning light illuminated three times last month. However, Homendy stressed during a news conference late Monday night that the NTSB has “no indication that this is in any way related to the incident” that resulted in part of the plane exploding.
Homendy said the investigation is complicated in part by the loss of key cockpit audio recordings because an equipment setting overrides the recordings after two hours of audio were captured. She advocated for the FAA and Congress to require that 24-hour recordings of cockpit audio be stored on all aircraft.
But as investigators continue to comb through data and eyewitness accounts and examine the jet itself, the early details of the investigation are harrowing. The damage extended to several rows of seats on the plane. According to Homendy, the two seats next to the severed door stopper happened to be empty when the explosion occurred, but their headrests were torn off.
01:50 – Source: CNN
Hear from a “traumatized” Alaska Airlines passenger
Video of the incident “looks very calm, but I'm sure it was completely chaotic,” Homendy said.
Also on Monday, United Airlines — which has more Max 9s than any other U.S. airline — said it found loose door plug screws on an unknown number of its Boeing 737 Max 9 planes while conducting FAA-required inspections of the jets . Alaska Airlines also announced Monday that inspections found loose parts on some of its 737 Max 9 planes.
Friday's high-profile incident once again shines a spotlight on Boeing's crash in recent years. The company has faced repeated quality and safety issues with its aircraft over the past five years, leading to long-term grounding of some of its jets and halting deliveries of other jets.
The most glaring quality problems for Boeing occurred in the design of the 737 Max, which is believed to be responsible for two fatal crashes: one in Indonesia in October 2018 and the other in Ethiopia in March 2019. The two crashes combined killed all 346 people on board the two flights and resulted in a 20-month grounding of the company's best-selling jets, costing the company more than $21 billion. But the design flaws that caused the crashes brought to light questions about Boeing's decision-making process. Internal communications released during the 737 Max's grounding showed one employee describing the jet as “designed by clowns who are in turn overseen by monkeys.”
The latest safety saga also highlights the fact that Boeing most likely doesn't have to worry about being forced out of business any time soon, no matter how extensive its mistakes are. Boeing and Airbus are the only two major global airline companies, neither company has been able to meet all of the demand for commercial aircraft on its own, and both have an order backlog that goes back years.
Boeing shares fell about 8% on Monday as investors grew increasingly concerned about further damage to the company. The company's shares fell another 1.5% on Tuesday.