(CNN) — Boeing CEO David Calhoun acknowledged the company’s “mistake” in the Alaska Airlines crash during an all-staff “safety meeting” Tuesday.
“We will address this number one by acknowledging our mistake,” Calhoun told staff, according to a partial readout of the meeting shared with CNN. “We will approach this matter with 100% transparency every step of the way. We will work with the NTSB, which is investigating the accident to find out what caused it.”
A company source said the company believes “the error in question” occurred in the plane’s manufacturing supply chain. However, it is not yet known whether Calhoun spotted any specific errors during the presentation.
The source said the meeting also included a reminder of the seriousness of the situation. Employees were told that the company’s safety chief is now responsible for the 737 Max fleet. Mike Delaney is Boeing’s director of aerospace safety.
The meeting, which took place at noon Pacific time at the 737 Max factory in Renton, Washington, also included an expression of confidence in “Boeing, the aircraft and the (Boeing) employees,” said the source.
The meeting highlighted actions taken by the flight crew and Alaska Airlines in handling the situation, the source said.
Passengers’ oxygen masks hang from the ceiling next to a missing window and part of a side wall of Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, which was headed to Ontario, California, and suffered a depressurization shortly after takeoff, in Portland, Oregon, on January 5th. (Credit: @strawberrvy/Instagram via Reuters)
The company is committed to working with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) to ensure proper inspections are conducted. On Tuesday, the FAA said it was in discussions with Boeing to determine how best to conduct such inspections and that the planes would continue to be grounded until the inspections were completed.
During the meeting, Boeing also pledged to work with the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) in trying to determine what happened, the source said. CNN has reached out to Boeing for comment.
An Alaska Airlines flight carrying 177 people made an emergency landing shortly after takeoff from Portland, Oregon on Friday after part of the wall of a week-old 737 Max 9 plane broke off, leaving a huge hole on the side of the plane. airplane. On Saturday, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered most Boeing 737 Max 9 planes to be temporarily grounded while regulators and Boeing investigate the cause of the crash. The order applies to approximately 171 aircraft worldwide.
On Tuesday, the FAA said Boeing’s plan to inspect the door caps on the 737 Max 9 plane needed revisions and that the plane will remain grounded in the meantime.
“Boeing provided an initial version of the instructions yesterday that they are now revising due to comments received in response,” the FAA said in a statement Tuesday. “Upon receipt of Boeing’s revised guidance, the FAA will conduct a thorough review.”
Remarkably, no one was killed or seriously injured in Friday’s mid-air crash, which was partially captured in terrifying videos shared by passengers on the same flight.
Calhoun said the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting included discussing the company’s response to the accident, according to an internal memo inviting all employees to participate and which was shared publicly by Boeing.
“When it comes to the safety of our products and services, every decision and every action counts,” Calhoun wrote in the memo to employees. “And when serious incidents like this occur, it is critical for us to work transparently with our customers and regulators to understand and address the causes of the event and ensure they do not happen again.”
Calhoun also alluded to the growing safety concerns Boeing has faced in recent years, following two fatal crashes in 2018 and 2019. “While we have made progress in strengthening our safety management and control systems and processes, quality in recent years, situations like this remind us that we must stay focused to continue to improve every day,” the CEO wrote.
Meanwhile, the incident also attracted the attention of lawmakers. In a statement Tuesday, Sen. J.D. Vance asked the Senate Commerce Committee to convene a hearing to “evaluate the accidents involving the 737 MAX, Boeing’s engineering and safety standards, and the quality of oversight provided by Boeing. ” .”
“I hope the hearing happens as soon as possible,” added Vance, an Ohio Republican.
US President Joe Biden is personally following the landing of several Boeing 737 MAX 9 planes for inspection following the dramatic emergency landing of the Alaska Airlines flight, the White House said on Tuesday, as the investigation continues.
The White House is “relieved” that all passengers and crew on Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 are safe, White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said, noting that the plane will remain grounded as long as airline operators Federal Aviation Administration “will not complete enhanced inspections.”
National Transportation Safety Board officials recover missing door plug from Alaska Airlines Flight 1282. The Boeing 737 MAX 9 underwent a rapid decompression Friday over Portland, Oregon. (Credit: NTSB)
The latest on the investigations
Exactly what caused a refrigerator-sized hole to suddenly open in the passenger plane Friday is still under investigation. A preliminary report is expected within three to four weeks, National Transportation Safety Board spokesman Eric Weiss said.
The council said Monday evening that it continues to recover items ejected from the plane. On Sunday, a Portland school teacher found a piece of the fuselage from the plane that had landed in her backyard and contacted the agency. Two cell phones were also found in a courtyard and on the side of the road, probably having flown out of the hole of the plane, which were handed over to investigators.
NTSB Chairwoman Jennifer Homendy also told reporters over the weekend that Alaska Airlines had previously banned the crash plane from flying over the ocean after the plane’s automatic pressurization warning light came on three times in the last month. Homendy, however, stressed during a news conference that the NTSB has “no indication that this is in any way related” to the crash that sent part of the plane flying.
Complicating the investigation in part is the loss of critical audio recordings from the cockpit, Homendy said, due to a device setting that overwrites recordings after collecting two hours of audio. He advocated for the FAA and Congress to require that cockpit audio recordings be kept on all airplanes 24 hours a day.
However, as investigators continue to sift through data, eyewitness accounts and examine the plane itself, the early details of the investigation are harrowing. The damage extended to several rows of the plane. According to Homendy, the two seats next to the detached door stop were empty when the explosion occurred, but the headrests had been torn off.
Video of the incident “looks very calm, but I’m sure it was completely chaotic,” Homedy said.
In a company statement Saturday, Boeing said it agreed with the FAA’s decision to ground most of the 737 Max 9 planes while they were inspected, stressing that “safety is our top priority.” Boeing said on Monday it had sent instructions to airlines and maintenance companies on how to inspect the planes.
Also on Monday, United Airlines, which has more Max 9s than any other U.S. airline, said it found loose bolts on door caps on an unspecified number of its Boeing 737 Max 9 planes while conducting inspections of the planes ordered by the FAA. Alaska Airlines also said Monday that it found loose hardware on some of its 737 Max 9 planes during inspections.
Boeing’s fall from grace
Friday’s high-profile incident once again highlights Boeing’s fall from grace in recent years. Over the past five years the company has faced repeated quality and safety problems with its planes, leading to the prolonged grounding of some of its models and halted deliveries of others.
The most glaring quality issues for Boeing emerged with the design of the 737 Max, which was blamed for two fatal crashes: one in Indonesia in October 2018 and the other in Ethiopia in March 2019. Together, the two crashes resulted in fatalities of 346 people. people and caused the company’s best-selling planes to be grounded for 20 months, costing more than $21 billion. But the design flaws that led to the crashes have raised questions about Boeing’s decision-making process. Internal communications released during the 737 Max grounding showed one employee describing the plane as “designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys.”
The latest safety saga also highlights the fact that Boeing most likely won’t have to worry about going out of business anytime soon, no matter how bad its mistakes. Boeing and Airbus are the only two major global airlines, neither can meet all the demand for commercial planes on its own, and both have a backlog of orders that dates back years.
Boeing shares fell about 8% on Monday as investors grow increasingly concerned about further damage to its business.
— CNN’s Chris Isidore, Gregory Wallace, Pete Muntean, Betsky Klein and Taylor Romine contributed to this report.
2024-01-10 05:35:00
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