Boeing chief questioned on safety failures and whistleblower practices

Senators grilled Boeing chief executive Dave Calhoun on Tuesday about the company’s safety failures, saying the aircraft maker has done too little to protect whistleblowers who have raised concerns about retaliation.

Boeing appears to have “fostered a culture that censors people who try to speak up”, said Senator Maggie Hassan, while Senator Richard Blumenthal highlighted that changes the company promised to make last month shared similarities with actions it said it would take in 2015, following a settlement with federal aviation regulators.

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

The Senate permanent subcommittee launched an inquiry in March, two months after a mid-air blowout of a door panel on an Alaska Airlines jet during a flight. The blowout, which caused injuries but no fatalities, followed two crashes in 2018 and 2019 on the 737 Max that killed a combined 346 people.

Surviving family members held photos of their loved ones aloft on Tuesday, and Calhoun began his testimony with an apology “for the grief we have caused”. Calhoun became chief executive in January 2020 after the two crashes though he had served as a company board member since 2009.

Boeing has been criticised for prioritising shareholder returns at the expense of engineering and manufacturing prowess. A memo from the subcommittee summarising its investigation so far said documents and whistleblower accounts “paint a troubling picture of a company that prioritises speed of manufacturing and cutting costs over ensuring the quality and safety of aircraft”.

“Much has been said about Boeing’s culture,” Calhoun testified. “We’ve heard those concerns loud and clear. Our culture is far from perfect, but we are taking action and making progress.”

Calhoun testified a day after another whistleblower, Boeing quality assurance investigator Sam Mohawk, came forward to tell the subcommittee of a lack of documentation of parts that do not meet specifications in the Renton, Washington, factory, where the 737 Max is assembled, increasing the possibility that a defective part could be installed in a plane.

The subcommittee has heard from “more than a dozen whistleblowers”, Blumenthal said. In April, Boeing engineer Sam Salehpour testified about potential safety problems on the 787 and 777, as well as what he described as a culture of retaliation at the company.

Debra Katz and Lisa Banks, the attorneys representing Salehpour, said on Monday in a letter to Calhoun that their law firm of Katz Banks Kumin was “in contact with dozens of current Boeing employees, and believe, based on their well-documented reports, that . . . Boeing’s failed safety culture has not improved”.

Boeing has said complaints to its internal hotline to report safety concerns, “Speak Up”, increased 500 per cent this year. Katz and Banks called on the company to release the raw numbers — “Have employee reports increased from five to 25 or from 1,000 to 5,000?” — as well as to disclose how often these reports go to federal aviation regulators and if employees stay with the company after reporting the concerns.

Boeing is facing multiple investigations, including from the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Justice. The Senate subcommittee heard Calhoun’s testimony as part of an effort to examine Boeing’s quality and safety practices, and it will ultimately issue a report with its findings.

The company delivered a plan to the FAA in May establishing how it will improve its manufacturing processes. Blumenthal pointed out that four of the items — establishing a safety management system, auditing suppliers, improving metal fabrication, and developing performance metrics — all matched requirements laid out in a 2015 settlement with the regulator to ensure the airworthiness of Boeing’s jets.