Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun spent two hours Tuesday trying to convince mostly skeptical senators that the struggling plane maker has made a commitment to safety after a pair of deadly crashes six years ago.
Democratic and Republican lawmakers alike criticized Calhoun at a Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations hearing over a series of in-flight incidents that have dogged the company this year, the latest safety missteps after a pair of plane crashes in 2018 and 2019 that resulted in Almost 350 people died. .
Calhoun, testifying for the first and perhaps the last time, rejected widespread allegations that Boeing retaliates against employees who raise safety concerns.
“I often cite and reward people who raise issues, even if they have huge consequences for our company and our production,” he said. “We are working hard to reach our people.”
The hearing stems from an incident on an Alaska Airlines flight in January in which part of the fuselage of a Boeing 737 Max 9 was torn from the aircraft’s body mid-flight. Calhoun told lawmakers that Boeing held company-wide feedback sessions with employees immediately after the Alaska Airlines flight on ways to improve safety, and that the plane maker made significant changes to its incentive structure last year.
“I’m trying to process 30,000 ideas about how we can move forward,” he said.
This is not what current and former employees have stated. Connecticut Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal, who chaired the hearing, told Calhoun that a dozen whistleblowers told the subcommittee of a variety of retaliations, including reassignments, exclusion from key meetings, verbal abuse and even physical threats.
Boeing manager and whistleblower John Barnett, who died in March of an apparent suicide, received 21 phone calls from his boss one day and 19 another day after Barnett raised concerns about missing parts. According to Blumenthal, when Barnett told his boss about the calls, the boss told him he would “pressure him until he broke.”
“I have listened to reports from whistleblowers who were present at your hearing,” Calhoun told Blumenthal. “Something went wrong, and I believe in the sincerity of their statements.”
Following the Alaska Airlines crash, a wave of whistleblowers added fuel to the investigation into Boeing. Before the hearing, the subcommittee made public claims by quality inspector Sam Mohawk, who claimed that Boeing had lost about 400 parts from the 737 Max planes.
One of the main questions the subcommittee considered was whether Boeing had actually made any significant changes to its quality and safety controls over the past five years.
In 2021, the company settled a lawsuit with the Justice Department after two plane crashes in 2018 and 2019 killed 346 people. Boeing paid a $243.6 million fine in exchange for dodging accusations that it deceived regulators about the flight system. The Justice Department now argues that Boeing failed to make agreed-upon changes to prevent similar incidents from happening again.
“I think you’ve certainly demonstrated that you can talk about these changes, but it may actually take a different team to implement them,” Blumenthal said.
Josh Hawley, a Republican senator from Missouri, accused Calhoun of “open mining” the company, saying the CEO deliberately chose to maximize profits and stock price at the expense of safety.
“We have repeatedly written to this committee and asserted that Boeing is doing everything possible to ensure quality and safety,” Hawley said. “Not only in the past, but also now.”
Hawley went so far as to ask Calhoun why he hasn’t resigned yet, but the CEO defended his record at the helm of Boeing.
“I’m proud to take this job,” Calhoun responded. “I am proud of our safety record. I’m proud of every action we took.”