BOEING’S under-fire CEO has quit after the aviation giant was plunged into crisis over a series of dangerous jet failures.
David Calhoun is set to be leaving at the end of the year, with other senior figures resigning following the death of a company whistleblower and a criminal investigation.
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The planemaker said that Stan Deal, Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO, would retire and Stephanie Pope would lead the business, effective immediately.
She recently became Boeing’s Chief Operating Officer after previously running Boeing Global Services.
Larry Kellner, Chairman of the Board, is also quitting and will have his last day at Boeing’s annual meeting in May.
He has been replaced as chairman by Steve Mollenkopf, a Boeing director since 2020.
The departures come as airlines and regulators have been calling for for major changes at Boeing following a slew of quality and manufacturing issues on their aircraft.
Scrutiny intensified after January 5, when a door plug on a relatively new Boeing 737 Max 9 blew out on an Alaska Airlines flight.
Calhoun wrote to employees on Monday: “As you all know, the Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 accident was a watershed moment for Boeing.
“We must continue to respond to this accident with humility and complete transparency. We also must inculcate a total commitment to safety and quality at every level of our company.
“The eyes of the world are on us, and I know we will come through this moment a better company, building on all the learnings we accumulated as we worked together to rebuild Boeing over the last number of years.”
Last week, airline CEOs began booking meetings with Boeing officials to express their dissatisfaction with the absence of manufacturing quality controls and lower-than-expected output of 737 Max aircraft.
The meetings were to be attended by Kellner and one or more additional board members.
Calhoun has spent months promising investors, airline passengers, and the broader public that Boeing would address its numerous quality issues.
He was appointed CEO of Boeing in late 2019 and took over in early 2020 after the company fired its former CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, over his handling in the aftermath of two catastrophic 737 Max crashes.
In 2019, tragedy struck a Boeing 737 Ethiopian Airlines flight and claimed all lives those onboard, including 149 passengers and eight crew members.
Justin Green, partner at Kreindler & Kreindler LLP, represents 34 families who lost loved ones on the doomed Ethiopian Airlines crash.
Reacting to the resignation news, he said: “Change at Boeing must start from the top, so it’s positive that Boeing CEO David Calhoun will step down after the latest safety scandals.
“However, this decision comes quite late, since he served on Boeing’s board for both 737 MAX crashes and, like his predecessor, made millions without righting the ship.
“The next CEO must know that his or her role will be to prioritise safety, not just profit.
“While we are pleased to see that serious and immediate personnel changes are being made at Boeing in the wake of recent and troubling safety issues, Boeing must be fully transparent in every change it plans to make with regard to its manufacturing and quality control processes.
“For too long, Boeing has been avoiding public accountability and these leadership changes open a window for the company to do so.”
URGENT MEETING
In January, Calhoun called for an urgent meeting after more than 170 flights were grounded following a terrifying mid-air incident.
He sent out an email to all Boeing employees on Sunday after a bizarre event saw a plane door ripped out mid-air.
Calhoun invited them to join a safety meeting following the events that took place on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282.
The meeting was set to take place on January 9 at the company’s factory in Renton, Washington.
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“When it comes to the safety of our products and services, every decision and every action matters,” Calhoun said in the email shared directly with The U.S. Sun.
He stated that when serious accidents, like that one on Friday, occur, “it is critical for us to work transparently with our customers and regulators to understand and address the causes of the event, and to ensure they don’t happen again.”
“I am deeply grateful to our colleagues who have been working tirelessly on our company’s response over the past two days,” he continued.
The meeting will focus on the company’s response to the accident, along with Boeing’s commitment to “safety, quality, integrity, and transparency.”
Calhoun says the company has been working hard to strengthen their quality control systems and safety management, but incidents such as Flight 1282 is a reminder to continue improving.
Along with the safety meeting, Calhoun has cancelled a leadership summit for all company vice presidents.
The CEO decided to cancel the event to focus on the investigation of Flight 1282 and to provide support to passengers who were on the Alaska Airlines flight.
“In light of the Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 in-flight event, we are canceling the Summit to focus on our support to Alaska Airlines and the ongoing National Transportation Safety Board investigation, and any of our airline customers experiencing impact to their fleets,” Calhoun said in a message to all Boeing VP’s.
SKY HIGH TROUBLE
Aviation giant Boeing has found itself plunged into crisis after a series of dangerous jet failures and the death of a company whistleblower.
Mr Barnett, a former longtime Boeing employee-turned-whistleblower, was found dead in his truck just days after giving evidence against the company which is in the midst of a criminal investigation.
And it’s not the first time Boeing has been caught up in controversy.
The 737 MAX, most commonly used aircraft for commercial flights in the world, was grounded in countries around the world between March 2019 and December 2020.
It came after 346 people died in two similar crashes on the planes, the Lion Air flight in October 2018 and the Ethiopian Airlines flight in March 2019.
The following year debris was also found in the fuel tanks of jets kept in storage with the head of Boeing’s 737 programme telling employees that the discovery was “absolutely unacceptable”.
The planes were eventually allowed to take off in late 2020 after upgrades were made to their jets.
But recent months have seen a spate of fresh safety concerns for the airline giant.
BOEING WHISTLEBLOWER DEAD
Earlier this month, a former Boeing employee turned whistleblower was found dead in his truck days after giving evidence against the company.
John Barnett, 62, had worked for Boeing for 32 years before he retired in 2017.
He had been providing evidence of alleged wrongdoing at Boeing to investigators working on a lawsuit against the company at the time of his death, according to the BBC.
Barnett died from a “self-inflicted” wound on March 9, the coroner said, as police investigate his death.
Based on my years of experience and past history of plane accidents, I believe it’s just a matter of time before something big happens with a 787
John Barnett
He was found inside his truck in the parking lot of the Charleston hotel where he had been staying to complete interviews with investigators in the Boeing case.
He was due for further questioning, and when he did not appear for the interview, investigators sought him out and ultimately found his body at the hotel.
But a close family friend has now revealed how Barnett’s last chat with her turned out to be some sort of “premonition”.
Pal Jennifer said Barnett anticipated his death and that a story would emerge that he had killed himself – but told her not to believe it.
“I know that he did not commit suicide. There’s no way,” she said.
Jennifer said she was aware that her friend had filed a damaging complaint against Boeing, who claimed the aerospace giant retaliated against him when he blew the whistle on unsafe practices.
She revealed: “He wasn’t concerned about safety because I asked him.
“I said, ‘Aren’t you scared?’ And he said, ‘No, I ain’t scared, but if anything happens to me, it’s not suicide.'”
Beginning in 2010, Barnett was a quality manager at Boeing North Charleston factory producing 787 Dreamliner planes — relied on for long-haul routes.
In 2019, he told BBC reporters that he had seen workers under pressure purposely fitting sub-standard parts onto aircraft on the production line.
Barnett claimed that defective parts were mishandled and sometimes lost or refitted to planes from the company scrapyard to meet production timelines.
He also alleged that he had discovered major issues in some of the planes’ oxygen systems which could lead to one in four masks not functioning properly.
Barnett attributed much of the lower-quality work on the aircraft to an increasingly rushed assembly process that was encouraged by executives who wanted to speed up production.
He also said he had told Boeing managers about his concerns, but the warnings ultimately went unheeded.
“Based on my years of experience and past history of plane accidents, I believe it’s just a matter of time before something big happens with a 787,” Barnett said in 2019.
Boeing denied Barnett’s claims to the BBC, but a 2017 investigation by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) upheld some of Barnett’s assertions.
The FAA found that at least 53 “non-conforming” parts had unknown locations in the factory and were essentially lost.
Also in 2017, Boeing announced that the company had “identified some oxygen bottles received from the supplier that were not deploying properly,” but denied that any of the problematic canisters were actually fitted on aircraft.
In an emailed statement, a Boeing representative told The Sun: “We are saddened by Mr. Barnett’s passing, and our thoughts are with his family and friends.”
Sky high chaos: a timeline of Boeing incidents
BOEING has found itself at the centre of increasingly concerning reports in recent months thanks to malfunctions on its planes. Here is a timeline of the biggest incidents surrounding the American aircraft maker.
March 2024 – Boeing 787 LATAM LA800 “sudden nose-dive”
March 2024 – Wheel falls off Boeing 777 United Airlines plane
January 2024 – Boeing Alaska Airlines ripped window
January 2024 – Boeing 747 Delta Airlines plane loses front tyre
March 2019 – Boeing 737 MAX 8 Ethiopia Airlines fatal crash
October 2018 – Boeing 737 MAX 8 Indonesia Lion Air fatal crash
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