Alaska Airlines panel blowout: Boeing CEO acknowledges 'mistake'
An accident like the mid-air Alaska Airlines panel blowout “can never happen again,” Boeing’s president and CEO said, acknowledging mistakes had been made.
An accident like the midair Alaska Airlines panel blowout “can never happen again,” Boeing’s president and CEO said Tuesday, as he acknowledged a “mistake” had been made before the plane was forced to make an emergency landing.
Dave Calhoun said the company was working to assure airline customers that its planes are safe and assist the National Transportation Safety Board in figuring out the cause of the mishap, which snapped off a panel of the fuselage of an almost full 737 MAX 9 on Friday, leaving a large hole.
“We’re going to approach this, No. 1, acknowledging our mistake. We’re going to approach it with 100% and complete transparency every step of the way,” he told a town hall staff meeting at the factory that makes 737 planes in Renton, Washington. Boeing was going to work with the NTSB “to find out what the root cause is,” he said.
Calhoun added that the company will “get to a conclusion” on the cause of the accident and work with investigators and the Federal Aviation Administration to make sure it “can never happen again.”
“I got kids, I got grandkids and so do you. This stuff matters. Everything matters, every detail. I know I’m preaching to the choir here, this isn’t a lecture, not by any stretch. It’s nothing more than a reminder of the seriousness with which we have to approach our work,” he said.
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