'We know we made mistakes' on 737 MAX: Boeing CEO

By David Shepardson

 

FILE PHOTO: Boeing Chairman, President and CEO Dennis Muilenburg speaks at the New York Economic club luncheon in New York City, New York, U.S., October 2, 2019. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton

 

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Boeing Co Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg will acknowledge on Tuesday that the aircraft manufacturer made mistakes, as he appears at a congressional hearing on two 737 MAX crashes that killed 346 people, according to written testimony made public on Monday.

 

"We have learned and are still learning from these accidents, Mr. Chairman. We know we made mistakes and got some things wrong," Muilenburg will tell the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee.

 

The testimony, which was first reported by Reuters and made public later on Monday, added that the company had made improvements to the now-grounded MAX 737 airplane "that will ensure that accidents like these never happen again."

 

Muilenburg, who was stripped of his title as Boeing chairman by the board earlier this month, will also testify before the U.S. House of Representatives Transportation and Infrastructure Committee on Wednesday.

 

U.S. airlines have canceled flights into January and February because of the grounding and the Federal Aviation Administration is not expected to approve the 737 MAX's ungrounding until December at the earliest.

 

"We also know we can and must do better," Muilenburg's testimony says. It also expresses "deepest sympathies to the families and loved ones" of those killed, noting the hearing would be taking place on the anniversary of the crash of Lion Air Flight 610 in Indonesia that killed 189 people. He added that when the 737 MAX returns, "it will be one of the safest airplanes ever to fly."

 

In March, after a 737 MAX crash of Ethiopian Airlines 302 killed 157 people, the plane was grounded worldwide.

 

Senate Commerce Committee Chairman Roger Wicker told Reuters last week that the 737 MAX "won’t fly unless 99.9% of the American public and American policymakers are convinced that it’s absolutely safe."

 

Indonesian investigators reported on Friday that Boeing acting without adequate oversight from U.S. regulators, failed to grasp risks in the design of cockpit software on its 737 MAX airliner, sowing the seeds for Lion Air 610 that also involved errors by airline workers and crew.

 

'LONGER THAN EXPECTED'

Muilenburg noted that both crashes involved the repeated activation of a flight control software function known as MCAS after it got faulty sensor input.

 

Boeing's development of that software has come under criticism in reports and from lawmakers and the company is adding significant safeguards to the system. Muilenburg said the changes would "eliminate the possibility of even extremely unlikely risks that are unrelated to the accident."

 

Boeing has admitted few mistakes since the two fatal crashes. Earlier this month, the FAA questioned why Boeing withheld instant messages from a former pilot for months that raised questions about MCAS.

 

In May, Boeing acknowledged it did not tell the FAA for 13 months that it inadvertently made an alarm alerting pilots to a mismatch of flight data optional on the 737 MAX, instead of standard as on earlier 737s. The company insisted the missing display represented no safety risk.

 

Muilenburg acknowledged that getting the plane in the air "has taken longer than we originally expected, but we're committed to getting it right, and return-to-service timing is completely dependent on answering each and every question from the FAA."

 

He added that "regulators should approve the return of the MAX to the skies only after they have applied the most rigorous scrutiny, and are completely satisfied as to the plane's safety.

 

The flying public deserves nothing less."

 

U.S. Representative Peter DeFazio, who chairs the House panel, has one main question for Boeing at Wednesday's hearing: "How the hell did this happen?"

 

(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Richard Chang and Peter Cooney)

 

-- © Copyright Reuters 2019-10-29

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It is not about mistakes made, it is about the company attitude.

I very much doubt that has been addressed.

This was not simply a technical problem, somebody in management directed the application of an inherently unstable airframe/engine configuration and on top of that directed the application of an intrinsically unreliable technological solution to ‘control’ the resulting aircraft instability.

 

They did so for commercial reasons.

 

This goes right to the top of Boeing, look for an engineer to take the fall.

 

 

Sad to see such a fine company hurt by executive malfeasance trying to save money

42 minutes ago, Chomper Higgot said:

This was not simply a technical problem, somebody in management directed the application of an inherently unstable airframe/engine configuration and on top of that directed the application of an intrinsically unreliable technological solution to ‘control’ the resulting aircraft instability.

 

They did so for commercial reasons.

 

This goes right to the top of Boeing, look for an engineer to take the fall.

 

 

Absolutely. I come from the military aerospace sector and I am familiar with the technique of creating a deliberately unstable air frame. Stabilizing techniques are then applied to make the aircraft flyable, whilst also being highly maneuverable. Just what combat pilots need in difficult situations.

 

This technique goes all the way back to the Vulcan bomber which would have been all but unflyable without a system known as 'Autostab'. (Concord had a similar system by the way)

 

Boeing appear to used a 'military' solution to overcome a known instability problem on a civil passenger aircraft. That's criminal negligence of the highest order and I doubt if they'll find an engineer to take the rap on this one.

 

 

I read an article recently regarding how Boeing attempted to stifle Canadian business Bombardier via nationalistic lobbying and sanctions according to the author.

 

Boeing's play actually backfired and may have lead indirectly to the issues with the 737 max. It is worth a read.

 

https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-boeing-tried-to-kill-a-great-airplaneand-got-outplayed

 

Edit: I also found this when searching for the original article. https://www.businessinsider.com/boeings-trade-dispute-canada-bombardier-airbus-alabama-winner-2019-1

 

1 hour ago, stevenl said:

It is not about mistakes made, it is about the company attitude.

I very much doubt that has been addressed.

Also about the very extended time to really get a hold on the problems and still the a/c is not certified to fly.

 

How come boing hadn't been punished on these points

Popcorn talk. Scrap the plane. And the SEC should make stock buybacks illegal, so that next time Boeing will invest in aircraft research and design, instead of pumping its stock price up with buybacks to reward executives with bonuses.

You can sell that <deleted> to Thai Airways with a discount probably. They are just looking for a bargain. ????

9 hours ago, stevenl said:

It is not about mistakes made, it is about the company attitude.

I very much doubt that has been addressed.

My son-in-law, who used to work at Renton, says that quite a lot has changed.  Whether the rushing of production by the managers will moderate has yet to be seen.

Reminds me of 2008, the 'too big to fail' atmosphere. I have to feel that a big enough rug will be found.

Boeing holds many DOD contracts.  It can’t fail as a company but it can lose a huge amount of money.

7 minutes ago, DogNo1 said:

Boeing holds many DOD contracts.  It can’t fail as a company but it can lose a huge amount of money.

And that money should be pulled directly out of management's pockets (but doubt it will).

10 hours ago, stevenl said:

It is not about mistakes made, it is about the company attitude.

I very much doubt that has been addressed.

From the OP.

 

"We have learned and are still learning from these accidents, Mr. Chairman. We know we made mistakes and got some things wrong," Muilenburg will tell the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee." 

 

Then why didn't YOU take further action when the incidents were first reported?????

 

I have not seen a video of his speech or whatever, but in the text he comes over as not being overly concerned about the passengers and crew who died in those 2 terrible accidents.

 

He and Boeing initially blamed the pilots and ground crew who were not updated or retrained to know and understand the MCAS system. To add insult there was actually an option offered at a price, naturally, probably very expensive and time consuming, but sidelined as not that important.

 

Money and positioning in the market to be #1 was the be all and end all. Probably being in bed with the regulators saved Boeing money and the regulators time by doing a lot of their job for them and saying, Yes, there are no problems with the aircraft.

 

Personally I would like to see a big clear out of the senior management at Boeing and also at the FAA who have failed in their duty to the US aircraft industry and more importantly to the 346 innocent victims whose sad deaths can be laid clearly at the door ob Boeing and the FAA.

3 hours ago, DogNo1 said:

My son-in-law, who used to work at Renton, says that quite a lot has changed.  Whether the rushing of production by the managers will moderate has yet to be seen.

The senior management, responsible for the company attitude, has not changed. But these same people have changed the company approach?

 

Sorry, don't believe that one bit. The responsible ones for the company mentality should have been ousted.

7 hours ago, billd766 said:

From the OP.

 

"We have learned and are still learning from these accidents, Mr. Chairman. We know we made mistakes and got some things wrong," Muilenburg will tell the U.S. Senate Commerce Committee." 

 

Then why didn't YOU take further action when the incidents were first reported?????

 

I have not seen a video of his speech or whatever, but in the text he comes over as not being overly concerned about the passengers and crew who died in those 2 terrible accidents.

 

He and Boeing initially blamed the pilots and ground crew who were not updated or retrained to know and understand the MCAS system. To add insult there was actually an option offered at a price, naturally, probably very expensive and time consuming, but sidelined as not that important.

 

Money and positioning in the market to be #1 was the be all and end all. Probably being in bed with the regulators saved Boeing money and the regulators time by doing a lot of their job for them and saying, Yes, there are no problems with the aircraft.

 

Personally I would like to see a big clear out of the senior management at Boeing and also at the FAA who have failed in their duty to the US aircraft industry and more importantly to the 346 innocent victims whose sad deaths can be laid clearly at the door ob Boeing and the FAA.

They weren't accidents. They were an outcome that to some extent was inevitable.

We use the term accident too freely to try and rationalise that something just ...whoops ..happened. Not in this case. There will be (and has been) a root cause to this and it is basically a poor design, insufficient training and negligence. These incidents should never have happened.

I do agree with the ex CEO's comments that it will never happen again as I doubt any airline will buy the Max. I certainly won't be flying on one. Commercial airlines should be ultra reliable and not need additional computer code to make up for design flaws. A Greyhound bus in the sky if you will.

10 hours ago, stevenl said:

The senior management, responsible for the company attitude, has not changed. But these same people have changed the company approach?

 

Sorry, don't believe that one bit. The responsible ones for the company mentality should have been ousted.

When they say ‘The buck stops here’, they are talking about the Dollar.

As a contractor I test avionics software and have done so on many systems.  The 787 flight controls while at MOOG in Utah.  The 787 Brake control software while at Crane Aerospace.  I tested Global Hawk software, X47 B software.  I just attended a great briefing about Failure Modes and Effects Testing (FMET) which I have done for ten years on many systems.  This briefing described the results of the investigation into what Boeing did. I can't post the briefing as it is company proprietary but here is the links to the NTSB report ASR1901.  Basically Boeing made bad and inappropriate assumptions about how the pilots would respond to the fault/circumstances.  Well the pilots on two of the planes did exactly that and the plane crashed.  My browser doesn't seem to want to download the report but here is the link that is stalling.  Heck I can't seem to access the main NTSB.GOv website.  That's not much help!

 

https://www.ntsb.gov/investigations/AccidentReports/Reports/ASR1901.pdf

 

I add that when I was at MOOG I could see they were not testing the system properly at our level.  I reported that to the MOOG managers.  He said he is not worried, Boeing will catch any issues in their integration lab.  I quit, I filed a report/complaint on the FAA site, and sent a letter to the FAA.  You will never see me on a Boeing 787.

Those 2 jets were sold with out the 2 extra safety features that some  North American Airlines got, I put the blame all on Boeing for being greedy, and not remembering safety for the Asian companies.  Hope they suffer lots of expensive law suits, and some of the Boeing people lose their jobs, even this CEO if he was around for all this time, before and after these accidents.

Geezer

On 10/29/2019 at 5:40 PM, timendres said:

And that money should be pulled directly out of management's pockets (but doubt it will).

A rare order of  events. More often  large bonuses to those that can establish good excuses, scapegoats, bs justifications or any other  damn way to minimize appropriate compensations/losses.

There have been some genuinely criminal aspects uncovered as part of investigation.

"Oooops! Sorry ????" ?

 just go back to 'fly by cable'

An off topic trolling post has been removed. 

 

A post with off topic generalizations about Thailand has been reported and removed. 

On 10/28/2019 at 11:03 PM, zydeco said:

Popcorn talk. Scrap the plane. And the SEC should make stock buybacks illegal, so that next time Boeing will invest in aircraft research and design, instead of pumping its stock price up with buybacks to reward executives with bonuses.

 

Research money may begin to dry up if nobody buys stocks because there is not enough reward.  This whole debacle is sleazy for sure but what you suggest is not the answer. A better way to do it would be to make sure that regulations are enforced and that the people overseeing it all are actually competent. Share buybacks didn't cause the planes to crash.

 

Another poster suggests Boeing did this to save money. I think that's also a little off. Boeing has enough money to buy anything they want this was more a matter of doing this to get to market quickly.

 

Obviously they have fierce competition with Airbus and getting a new plane out earlier can pay off huge sums to secure contracts. I am not justifying it but it wasn't about money so much as time. Boeing would willingly pay a king's ransom to get planes to delivery faster. 

 

 

10 minutes ago, Cryingdick said:

 

Research money may begin to dry up if nobody buys stocks because there is not enough reward.  This whole debacle is sleazy for sure but what you suggest is not the answer. A better way to do it would be to make sure that regulations are enforced and that the people overseeing it all are actually competent. Share buybacks didn't cause the planes to crash.

 

Another poster suggests Boeing did this to save money. I think that's also a little off. Boeing has enough money to buy anything they want this was more a matter of doing this to get to market quickly.

 

Obviously they have fierce competition with Airbus and getting a new plane out earlier can pay off huge sums to secure contracts. I am not justifying it but it wasn't about money so much as time. Boeing would willingly pay a king's ransom to get planes to delivery faster. 

 

 

So getting the market is not about the money.

Of course shares buy back didn't cause these planes to crash, but it did allow the company to make more money. And that is the root cause, it is all about making as much money as fast as possible, not about long term sustainability.

1 hour ago, stevenl said:

So getting the market is not about the money.

Of course shares buy back didn't cause these planes to crash, but it did allow the company to make more money. And that is the root cause, it is all about making as much money as fast as possible, not about long term sustainability.

 

What company doesn't want longevity? One isn't exclusive of the other. If you are saying share buy backs took enough money out Boeing's pocket that it made this result the only way it could have gone you are simply wrong. 

 

You should attack dividends ahead of that. The simple truth is Boeing did some dodgy things to get to market faster. If I had an invention that shaved one month off delivery dates I would be a multi-billionaire. 

 

Boeing at least until lately had huge amounts of free cash flow it isn't like it took food off the corporate table to buy back stock. I am sure you have studied the fundamentals and can tell me how much Boeing has paid out in dividends and buy backs in the last decade.

 

What would have prevented these crashes would have been competent, thorough, oversight from the relevant regulatory agencies. That didn't happen.

2 minutes ago, Cryingdick said:

 

What company doesn't want longevity? One isn't exclusive of the other. If you are saying share buy backs took enough money out Boeing's pocket that it made this result the only way it could have gone you are simply wrong. 

 

You should attack dividends ahead of that. The simple truth is Boeing did some dodgy things to get to market faster. If I had an invention that shaved one month off delivery dates I would be a multi-billionaire. 

 

Boeing at least until lately had huge amounts of free cash flow it isn't like it took food off the corporate table to buy back stock. I am sure you have studied the fundamentals and can tell me how much Boeing has paid out in dividends and buy backs in the last decade.

 

What would have prevented these crashes would have been competent, thorough, oversight from the relevant regulatory agencies. That didn't happen.

Thanks for proving my point with your post, which is only about short term pay-outs.

1 minute ago, stevenl said:

Thanks for proving my point with your post, which is only about short term pay-outs.

 

You are advocating making something such as buy backs illegal. Under what authority do you propose to do so? The proper channel is the government to do their job. Not blaming the boogeyman and whatever else. Why not just limit profits? No company can make more than $10 million a year.

 

The government has a role to play but where does it end? You limit corporate flexibility you will stifle innovation. All these big tech companies that innovate, many of them are actually not profitable. Yet they trade at nose bleed valuations despite that. You limit that and companies like Uber, AirBNB etc go out of business.

 

You may or may not like those companies but there are so many more that raise cash through issuing bonds and buying back shares. You would effectively kill off R&D for cancer, AIDS, space exploration ... on and on. 

 

Big dreams require big dollars. The Boeing case is becoming pretty egregious but any idea of limiting how companies leverage themselves would leave the USA at a huge disadvantage and essentially make China our new overlords.

 

 

39 minutes ago, Cryingdick said:

 

You are advocating making something such as buy backs illegal. Under what authority do you propose to do so? The proper channel is the government to do their job. Not blaming the boogeyman and whatever else. Why not just limit profits? No company can make more than $10 million a year.

 

The government has a role to play but where does it end? You limit corporate flexibility you will stifle innovation. All these big tech companies that innovate, many of them are actually not profitable. Yet they trade at nose bleed valuations despite that. You limit that and companies like Uber, AirBNB etc go out of business.

 

You may or may not like those companies but there are so many more that raise cash through issuing bonds and buying back shares. You would effectively kill off R&D for cancer, AIDS, space exploration ... on and on. 

 

Big dreams require big dollars. The Boeing case is becoming pretty egregious but any idea of limiting how companies leverage themselves would leave the USA at a huge disadvantage and essentially make China our new overlords.

 

 

"You are advocating making something such as buy backs illegal."

Please show me where I said that.

 

"You limit corporate flexibility you will stifle innovation. "

Where was that said?

 

"You may or may not like those companies but there are so many more that raise cash through issuing bonds and buying back shares. You would effectively kill off R&D for cancer, AIDS, space exploration ... on and on. "

No, buying back shares props up the stockprice, it will not kill off R&D.

 

"Big dreams require big dollars. The Boeing case is becoming pretty egregious but any idea of limiting how companies leverage themselves would leave the USA at a huge disadvantage and essentially make China our new overlords."

Funny you mention China, the example of a place where long term is king, in contrast to the USA. Lots of things can be learned from that, the present (and that has been going on for quite a few years now) short term vies is not the answer.

Just now, stevenl said:

"You are advocating making something such as buy backs illegal."

Please show me where I said that.

 

"You limit corporate flexibility you will stifle innovation. "

Where was that said?

 

"You may or may not like those companies but there are so many more that raise cash through issuing bonds and buying back shares. You would effectively kill off R&D for cancer, AIDS, space exploration ... on and on. "

No, buying back shares props up the stockprice, it will not kill off R&D.

 

"Big dreams require big dollars. The Boeing case is becoming pretty egregious but any idea of limiting how companies leverage themselves would leave the USA at a huge disadvantage and essentially make China our new overlords."

Funny you mention China, the example of a place where long term is king, in contrast to the USA. Lots of things can be learned from that, the present (and that has been going on for quite a few years now) short term vies is not the answer.

 

I guess I stand corrected. You are saying you believe buy backs shouldn't be eliminated by law? You seemed to be agreeing with somebody who was suggesting they be banned. By all means clarify your position.

6 minutes ago, Cryingdick said:

 

I guess I stand corrected. You are saying you believe buy backs shouldn't be eliminated by law? You seemed to be agreeing with somebody who was suggesting they be banned. By all means clarify your position.

I think I have made my position very clear. If you don't understand that says a lot about your preconceived ideas.

 

Have a great day.