Boeing fired CEO Dennis Muilenburg on Monday after a string of malfunctions in Boeing’s 737 Max airliner led to the worst year on record for the plane-maker.
Boeing’s chairman David Calhoun will replace Muilenburg as CEO, the company said. The aircraft company decided to fire Muilenburg after he was unable to pull it out of one of the most tumultuous times in its history.
Boeing has struggled to rectify issues related to its 737 Max, which President Trump grounded in March after two crashes took the lives of more than 300 people. The House Transportation Committee recently revealed a 2015 document that showed Boeing engineers worrying about the safety of the anti-stall mechanism in the 737 Max planes.
A default in the anti-stalling mechanism caused the plane’s computer to cause the planes to nose-dive at high speeds. In early 2019, 189 people died on a Lion Air flight in Indonesia, and another 157 people were killed on an Ethiopian Airlines flight. Both were 737 Max planes, and the anti-stalling mechanism was later found to be at fault for the wreckage.
Boeing struggled financially in the wake of the news, with analysts suggesting the company lost $2.9 billion over the summer months. Boeing reported losing close to $6 billion as their rival, Airbus, signed lucrative deals with Boeing scrambling to address technical difficulties and reassure investors of the company’s stability.
Muilenburg, 55, succeeded James McNerney as CEO in 2015. Making matters worse for the embattled plane-maker was last week’s high-profile failure of its unmanned Boeing Starliner. The Starliner went off-course during a mission to dock with the International Space Station.
UPDATE: This piece has been updated to reflect that Boeing fired ex-CEO Dennis Muilenburg. While the company referred to his exit as a resignation, as was previously reported, the language in its news release announcing the leadership change indicated otherwise.
