Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg was shamed for putting ‘flying coffins’ in the air as he testified before a Senate committee on the problematic Boeing 737 MAX airplanes, which were involved in two crashes killing 346 people in the last year.
Muilenburg was joined in the Senate Commerce Committee hearing room by family members of the victims who came armed with posters of their dead loved ones.
Boeing’s CEO opened the hearing by apologizing to the family members, though got called out by a number of senators for keeping information about the planes away from lawmakers.
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg testified before the Senate Commerce Committee on Tuesday on the anniversary of one of the two Boeing 737 MAX crashes
Family members of crash victims were seated behind Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg during his Senate testimony Tuesday
Sen. Richard Blumenthal asked family members of the victims to stand and to hold up posters of their loved ones, before he shamed Muilenburg for the company’s ‘flying coffins’
A woman holds of a poster featuring the photos of all those killed in the Ethiopian Airlines crash this March
A Boeing 737 MAX 8 is seen taking off. The planes have been grounded after two crashes, which collectively killed 346 people
Officials inspect an engine recovered from the crashed Lion Air jet in Jakarta, Indonesia
Officials from the United States National Transportation Safety Board examine debris from the Lion Air crash in Jakarta, Indonesia
Parts of the engine and the landing gear of the Boeing 373 MAX flight that crashed in Bishoftu, Ethiopia in March of this year
‘On behalf of myself and the Boeing company we are sorry, deeply and truly, sorry. as a husband and father myself I’m heartbroken by your losses,’ he said on Capitol Hill. ‘I think about you and your loved ones everyday and I know our entire Boeing team does as well. I know that probably doesn’t offer much comfort and healing at this point.’
Muilenburg was hauled before Congress to discuss what Boeing was doing behind-the-scenes with the problematic Boeing 737 MAX planes, which were involved in two deadly crashes – Lion Air Flight 610 on October 28, 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines Flights 302, which occurred March 10, 2019, which together killed 346.
Now the whole fleet is grounded, impacting U.S.-based airlines, American and Southwest.
‘Every day that drives us to improve our safety of our airplanes and our industry,’ Muilenburg said of the crashes.
‘We will never forget,’ he said. ‘And that is our commitment going forward.’
Asked ahead of the hearing if he would resign, Muilenburg said that was ‘not where my focus is.’
He also declined to say if he or the board were considering his resignation after the plane returns to service.
Boeing ran full-page advertisements in major newspapers expressing condolences to the families and loved ones of those killed in the crashes on Tuesday.
‘These two accidents occurred on my watch and I have a keen sense of responsibility,’ Muilenburg, who was stripped of his title as Boeing chairman by the board earlier this month, told reporters.
Family members, holding photos of victims of the crash, were seated just three rows behind Muilenburg during his testimony.
During Sen. Richard Blumenthal’s turn to ask questions, he asked the family members to stand and hold up those photos, before tearing into Muilenburg.
‘As I watch those loved ones stand … and as I sit here today, my anger has only grown,’ the Connecticut Democrat said. ‘These loved ones lost lives because of an accident that was not only preventable as the chairman said at the very start, but was part of a pattern of deliberate concealment.
Blumenthal reminded the crowd that Boeing had originally blamed the crashes on ‘pilot error.’
‘Those pilots never had a chance,’ he said. ‘These loved ones never had a chance.’
‘They were in flying coffins as a result of Boeing deciding that it was going to conceal MCAS from the pilots,’ he added.
Investigators have linked MCAS, a flight control system, to both crashes.
Later in the hearing, Muilenburg clarified that his company wasn’t placing blame on the pilots.
‘We have not blamed the pilots, and I know that’s been reported, but that it not our company position and it never will be,’ the CEO said. ‘We are responsible for our airplanes. We are responsible, and we own that, regardless of cause.’
For months, Boeing had largely not acknowledged blame and, instead, vowed to make a ‘safe plane safer.’
Sen. Jon Tester, a Democrat from Montana, didn’t buy that the planes were safe.
‘I would walk before I was to get on a 737 MAX, I would walk,’ Tester said. ‘There’s no way.’
‘And the question becomes when issues like this happen it costs your company huge,’ Tester added. ‘So you shouldn’t be cutting corners and I see corners being cut and this committee’s going to have to do something to stop that from happening.’
Tuesday’s hearing represents Boeing’s broadest acceptance of responsibility that it made mistakes, though Muilenburg’s written testimony ahead of the hearing did not describe in detail what those mistakes were.
Sen. Roger Wicker, the committee chairman, addressed families of the crash victims: ‘I promise to their loved ones that we will find out what went wrong and work to prevent future tragedies.’
On Monday, Muilenburg visited the Indonesian Embassy in Washington to meet with the ambassador and ‘pay our respects to those lost aboard Lion Air flight 610 on the first anniversary of the accident,’ Boeing said in a statement.
Muilenburg will also testify before the U.S. House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on Wednesday.
Michael Stumo, the father of Samya Rose Stumo, who died in the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crash in March, said on Monday the victims’ families would hold up photos of the ‘loved ones we lost’ to ‘make sure the focus is on that, rather than political or bureaucratic or engineering issues.’
He questioned why Boeing was only now adding safeguards to MCAS.
‘When you knew the MCAS system was part of that Lion Air crash, why didn’t you act to correct it immediately instead of still withholding information about it and blaming the pilots?’ Stumo said of Boeing.
U.S. airlines have canceled flights into January and February because of the grounding, and the Federal Aviation Administration is not expected to approve the 737 MAX’s ungrounding until December at the earliest.
In March, after the Ethiopian Airlines crash, the plane was grounded worldwide.
Indonesian investigators reported on Friday that Boeing, acting without adequate oversight from U.S. regulators, failed to grasp risks in the design of cockpit software on the 737 MAX, sowing the seeds for the Oct. 29, 2018, Lion Air 610 crash, which also involved errors by airline workers and crew.
At the hearing, Blumenthal said he was disappointed by the FAA as well. He said the FAA had given him overly redacted documents and refused to return his calls.
Muilenburg added that ‘regulators should approve the return of the MAX to the skies only after they have applied the most rigorous scrutiny, and are completely satisfied as to the plane’s safety. The flying public deserves nothing less.’