Boeing CEO Defends Company After Apologizing To Families Of Crash Victims

David Calhoun was hauled up before Congress to answer for safety flaws that led to devastating crashes involving its 737 Max planes.

U.S. lawmakers grilled Boeing’s chief executive Tuesday about the company’s plans to fix its manufacturing problems and its willingness to heed whistleblowers’ warnings, while relatives of people who died in two crashes of the aircraft maker’s 737 Max jetliners were in the room to remind him of what was at stake.

CEO David Calhoun appeared before the Senate investigations subcommittee, which is chaired by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a Boeing critic. Blumenthal opened the hearing by recognizing the relatives of the crash victims and the family of a Boeing whistleblower who died earlier this year.

“This hearing is a moment of reckoning,” the senator said. “It’s about a company, a once iconic company, that somehow lost its way.”

Calhoun’s appearance was the first before Congress by a high-ranking Boeing official since a panel blew out of a 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. No one was seriously injured in the incident, but it raised fresh concerns about the company’s best-selling commercial aircraft.

Calhoun sat at the witness table and fidgeted with his eyeglasses as Blumenthal spoke. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., thanked the CEO for coming to face “tough questions.” Before giving his prepared opening statement, Calhoun stood and faced the people in the audience holding poster-sized photos of some of the 346 people who died in the 2018 and 2019 crashes.