Boeing strips CEO of chairman role as 737 MAX crisis drags on
Boeing stripped Chief Executive Officer Dennis Muilenburg of his role as chairman, saying the move would enable him to focus on guiding the company out of the crisis engulfing its grounded 737 MAX jetliner.
Lead director David Calhoun, a former boss of General Electric's aviation division, will take over as non-executive chairman, Boeing said in a statement on Friday.
Muilenburg faces increased scrutiny as the global flying ban on the MAX nears the seven-month mark with little clarity on when the plane will return to service. The MAX, previously Boeing's best-selling jet, was grounded in March after two deadly crashes that killed 346 people. The ban sent shockwaves through aviation, cutting Boeing's profit and margins, with a cost to Boeing estimated at more than $US8 billion ($11.8 billion).
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg says his team is "laser-focused on returning the 737 MAX safely to service".Credit:Washington Post
"The board has full confidence in Dennis as CEO and believes this division of labour will enable maximum focus on running the business with the board playing an active oversight role," Calhoun said in the statement. "The board also plans in the near term to name a new director with deep safety experience and expertise to serve on the board and its newly established Aerospace Safety Committee."
Muilenburg said in a statement he was "fully supportive of the board's action. Our entire team is laser-focused on returning the 737 MAX safely to service and delivering on the full breadth of our company's commitments".
An aerospace engineer by training and Boeing lifer, the CEO has served as the company's public face throughout the crisis. That's made him a target of critics who contend that Boeing was too slow to fully explain the role its flight-control software played in the MAX disasters.
When asked in an interview last week if he was the right person to lead Boeing out of the deepening turmoil, Muilenburg responded: "This is not about me, right? It's about our company and what we do for our customers." He then said, "I will serve in this role with everything that I have as long as the board wants me serving in this role."
'Undue pressures'
Boeing announced the decision to split the CEO and chairman jobs on the same day that a review panel of global aviation experts delivered a scathing assessment of missteps by the company and the US Federal Aviation Administration in the development and certification of the MAX.
The Chicago-based manufacturer exerted "undue pressures" on some of its own employees who had FAA authority to approve design changes, according to a 69-page summary of the panel's findings.
Regulators assessing the aircraft sometimes didn't follow their own rules, used out-of-date procedures and lacked the resources and expertise to fully vet the design changes implicated in two fatal crashes, the Joint Authorities Technical Review found.
Erosion of flying skills
The report could also prompt a re-examination of automation, which experts say has led to erosion of flying skills among many pilots.
"As automation becomes more and more complex, pilots are less likely to fully understand it and more likely to have problems," the panel's chief, former National Transportation Safety Board chairman Christopher Hart said. Most pilots can handle problems that occur in automated systems, he said, but "when some don't, that's a crash."
Pilot unions, which criticised Boeing for not telling them about MCAS until after the first crash, praised the report.
"The first step toward ensuring this never happens again is recognising where the failures were," said Dennis Tajer, a pilot for American Airlines and a spokesman for its pilot union. He said the findings should be incorporated into the FAA's current review of Boeing changes to the MAX "because it will make a safer airplane and more highly trained pilots."
Jon Weaks, president of the pilot union at Southwest Airlines, said in a statement that the issues raised by the task force echo complaints by his union.
"As pilots, we have to be able to trust that Boeing will provide all the information we need to safely operate our aircraft," Weaks said. "In the case of the 737 MAX, that absolutely did not happen."
Bloomberg, AP