Boeing chief to face US Senate, admits ‘unacceptable’ failures in safety and production

The head of US aerospace giant Boeing will on Wednesday tell senators that the company has made “serious missteps in recent years” and commit to restoring consumer and investor confidence, according to an advance copy of his remarks.

On the eve of the hearing before the Senate Commerce, Science and Transportation Committee, Kelly Ortberg sent a message to the company’s 160,000 employees saying his testimony would be key “to restore trust” in the crisis-plagued manufacturer.

“Boeing has made serious missteps in recent years – and it is unacceptable,” Ortberg will say, according to the prepared remarks, which the company made public Tuesday.

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Boeing has suffered for several years from production quality problems, with the latest major incident in January last year involving an Alaska Airlines 737 seeing a door plug fly off mid-flight.

In January, it reported a loss of $3.9 billion as the company continued to experience a hit from a more than seven-week labor strike that shuttered two major assembly plants.

Ortberg took over in August, and will testify on Boeing’s restructuring efforts.

“We have made sweeping changes to the people, processes, and overall structure of our company,” he will say. “While there is still work ahead of us, these profound changes are underpinned by the deep commitment from all of us to the safety of our products and services.”

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In his message to employees, he said “we are starting to turn the corner in our recovery,” although he added that turning the company around would take “time and action.”

Ortberg will acknowledge two 737 MAX 8 crashes in October 2018 and March 2019, which killed a total of 346 people – some of whose relatives are expected at the committee hearing on Wednesday.

He will offer a “pledge to make the necessary changes so this never happens again.”

Boeing has acknowledged that the design of its MCAS stall protection software contributed to the accidents, which occurred on new aircraft shortly after takeoff.

Ortberg will testify that the aircraft manufacturer is implementing a new Safety Management System (SMS) that is “a framework built on proven aviation industry best practices, to proactively identify and manage safety risks that may impact our commercial and defense products.”