Lawmakers berated Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg for hours on Oct. 29 and 30 over his company’s handling of two commercial plane crashes that took hundreds of lives.
First the Senate, then the House, brought Muilenburg in front of lawmakers to answer questions about Boeing’s 737 Max. Design flaws in the Max contributed to the crash of a Lion Air flight in Indonesia in October 2018 that killed 189 people and an Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed 157 people on March 10, 2019.
Senators scolded Muilenburg and pressed the CEO to explain oversights and mistakes revealed in subsequent investigations of the deadly crashes. In general, lawmakers let the CEO skate by with vague answers and broad acceptance of responsibility. The senators on the Commerce Committee primarily focused on making strong denouncements of the CEO and his company rather than prying for answers.
“I would walk before I would get on a 737 Max,” said Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana. “I see corners being cut.”
“These loved ones never had a chance,” said Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut, referring to the victims of the crashes whose relatives sat in the back of the hearing room. “They were in flying coffins as a result of Boeing deciding that it was going to conceal MCAS from the pilots.”
MCAS, short for Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, uses sensors to detect if the plane is in danger of stalling and corrects by forcing the nose of the aircraft down. Both crashes happened because pilots either did not know how or could not override the system after it kicked in just after takeoff.
Sen. Tom Udall, a New Mexico Democrat, said that Boeing “blamed the deceased pilots and the culture of the countries where the crashes occurred.” Muilenburg denied both charges and said the company accepts responsibility for its airplanes.
Republican Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas oversaw arguably the most robust line of questioning Muilenburg faced in front of the Senate committee. Cruz pressed the CEO on when Boeing executives became aware of problems with MCAS, referencing text messages between two pilots from 2016 but revealed publicly just weeks ago. The texts said the system had run “rampant” in simulations and that one pilot had “basically lied to the regulators (unknowingly)” about its defects.
Muilenburg said, “I was made aware of the existence of this kind of document, this issue, as part of that discovery process in the investigation early in the year. At that point, I counted on my counsel to handle that appropriately.”
Cruz blasted Muilenburg for handing off responsibility to his counsel: “That is passive voice and disclaiming responsibility … You’re the CEO. The buck stops with you.”
In his next day of testimony in front of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, Muilenburg faced tougher questions from lawmakers after members of the committee revealed new evidence that Boeing knew of significant flaws in MCAS before the Lion Air crash.
The lawmakers revealed internal Boeing documents from company engineers that said a design flaw in the system could result in “potentially catastrophic” consequences. The information, however, was never passed to regulators at the Federal Aviation Administration.
The new evidence kicked off a five-hour ringer for Muilenburg, where lawmakers peppered him with questions on his salary and called for him to resign as CEO.
“I think it’s pretty clear to me, to the families of the victims, and to the American public that you should resign and do it immediately,” said Democratic Rep. Jesus Garcia of Illinois.
Democratic Rep. Steve Cohen of Tennessee asked Muilenburg if the chief executive would be giving up any of his salary this year. Muilenburg was paid over $23 million in 2018, and he boosted his total earnings to about $30 million with delayed stock payouts.
Muilenburg responded by pointing out that Boeing’s board, and not him, is responsible for setting the salary for executives. He also added that Boeing executives would not receive a bonus at the end of the year.
“You’re saying you’re not giving up any compensation at all?” Cohen said. “You’re continuing to work and make $30 million a year after this horrific two accidents that caused all these people’s relatives to go, to disappear, to die.”
