Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg issued an extensive statement concerning the preliminary report on flight 302 by Ethiopian Airlines. In it, he seems to apologize and accept blame for both the Lion Air and Ethiopian 737 MAX crashes. He also promises a quick software fix that will make the MAX “among the safest airplanes ever to fly.”
Unlike his last note, Muilenburg begins with an apology:
We at Boeing are sorry for the lives lost in the recent 737 MAX accidents. These tragedies continue to weigh heavily on our hearts and minds, and we extend our sympathies to the loved ones of the passengers and crew on board Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302. All of us feel the immense gravity of these events across our company and recognize the devastation of the families and friends of the loved ones who perished.
Then Muilenburg concedes that the MCAS system played a key role in both crashes:
The full details of what happened in the two accidents will be issued by the government authorities in the final reports, but, with the release of the preliminary report of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 accident investigation, it’s apparent that in both flights the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, known as MCAS, activated in response to erroneous angle of attack information.
The history of our industry shows most accidents are caused by a chain of events. This again is the case here, and we know we can break one of those chain links in these two accidents. As pilots have told us, erroneous activation of the MCAS function can add to what is already a high workload environment. It’s our responsibility to eliminate this risk. We own it and we know how to do it.
Note he is still obviously very careful in his words. While he concedes that erroneous angle of attack information triggered the MCAS, he implies it takes several links to cause accidents and that in “a high workload environment” it needs to make the job easier for pilots. That’s a subtle dig at pilots everywhere.
Then Muilenburg states that had software been in place, the Ethiopian plane would never have crashed:
From the days immediately following the Lion Air accident, we’ve had teams of our top engineers and technical experts working tirelessly in collaboration with the Federal Aviation Administration and our customers to finalize and implement a software update that will ensure accidents like that of Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 never happen again.
A solution to the MCAS problem will be available in weeks:
We’re taking a comprehensive, disciplined approach, and taking the time, to get the software update right. We’re nearing completion and anticipate its certification and implementation on the 737 MAX fleet worldwide in the weeks ahead. We regret the impact the grounding has had on our airline customers and their passengers.
This update, along with the associated training and additional educational materials that pilots want in the wake of these accidents, will eliminate the possibility of unintended MCAS activation and prevent an MCAS-related accident from ever happening again.
The question is how many weeks? Two weeks? Ten weeks? 52 weeks?
Muilenburg next underscores how safe the 737 MAX will be after the next software update:
We at Boeing take the responsibility to build and deliver airplanes to our airline customers and to the flying public that are safe to fly, and can be safely flown by every single one of the professional and dedicated pilots all around the world. This is what we do at Boeing.
We remain confident in the fundamental safety of the 737 MAX. All who fly on it—the passengers, flight attendants and pilots, including our own families and friends—deserve our best. When the MAX returns to the skies with the software changes to the MCAS function, it will be among the safest airplanes ever to fly.
He concludes the letter by offering additional platitudes on Boeing’s commitment to safety, which I won’t include. You can read the full statement here or watch it below:
CONCLUSION
I’ll give Muilenburg credit for not trying to avoid all blame. Whether the pilot should have been able to respond to the MCAS activation is another issue and does not fully absolve Boeing from a design flaw in its MAX series. Clearly, Boeing has moved on from the blame game and is now working on restoring trust and getting the 737 MAX back in the air.
What are your thoughts on the Boeing CEO’s latest statement?
When 2 planes dropped from the sky, is that really a software issue?
He is still in denial of the fact that they needed the software ‘solution’ to try and correct the imbalance resulting from hanging too heavy engines on the wrong place on an airframe that was designed half a century ago.
OMG enough already with the ridiculous assertion about the engines being too heavy
I blame the Republicans jerks that defanged a regulatory agency through cost cutting and turned it into a rubber stamping outfit.
Again these white Republican males have blood on their hands and show they care about nothing but money for themselves. Led by that ugly, fat chimpanzee in the white house this is a group of evil people.
If it’s safe muhlenberg should opt to send his kids and grandkids on at least 20 random flights on 737 max outside of the G7 countries i.e flown by rookie pilots. If he is c willing to take that risk then the flying public should too.
Yea, because if you don’ t have the regulatory agencies these companies won’t care if planes fall out of the sky. Get a grip, this has/is and will cost Boeing huge amounts of money and credibility. There is no way that they wanted this nor that they willingly ignored safety. It just wouldn’t make ANY sense. Yes, they did make serious mistakes and in retrospect should have seen this risk and avoided it before it cost 2 airplanes and the souls inside. But blaming it on the republicans is simply bull S
Bla bla bla yada yada. Only and only if Boeing offer a reasonable settlement for claims done by families of victims, then we can see that Boeing is sincere.
They were careless. And now they’re saying “we have a patch” which is 346 people late. Following Seattle times report, and knowing that Seattle is home to Boeing it seems they were loosing to their rival and cutting corners to get the Max done. A company with the history of Boeing should have known better and exposes a culture I’m not confident with (not that I am with Airbus as well)
This apology does not have a place in the heart of the relatives of who perished and should not be published.
Apparently Debit above is named for a deficit of gray matter. I wonder how the potential value of their stock options affected managements decisions on short cutting training and making airlines pay for safety features related to these two entirely preventable accidents? BP has a standard $10-$11 million payment for a workplace death, so that’s upwards of $4 billion to Boeing and I think they should gladly pay it and claw back all stock options for people that worked on this project. Then the entire team that was in charge of this project should pray they don’t personally get charged with manslaughter in multiple jurisdictions which I personally believe they should be charged.
A halfhearted apology that includes blaming others is not the best way to go. The whole thing seemed a bit off, like trying to weasel out of responsibility. Instead of trying to include others in the blame for their own mistakes, Boeing should have owned the problem.
@Matthew do you know if Boeing pays or somehow compensates airlines due to the disruption caused by groundings everywhere? It would be awesome if you could write an piece on this based on your knowledge of the law.
I just installed iOS 12.2 and now my iPhone works perfectly 100% of the time and never malfunctions in any way.
@Ron,
Many, if not most aircraft today require software to keep them handling properly. Aerodynamically, the MAX is a perfectly capable airplane, but without the software would handle rather differently than previous versions of the 737. To suggest the basic design is flawed you really would need to provide evidence, of which there doesn’t seem to be any. The age of the fuselage cross-section design (the part you are referring to when you say a 50-year-old design) is irrelevant. The A330 Neo is using the same 45-year old fuselage design as the original A300 but nobody questions its airworthiness…
Personally I think Boeing is FINALLY striking the correct tone – this piece of software allowed a chain of events to happen, which should have been anticipated, no matter how remote. Redundancies should have been built in on the assumption of basic failures occurring. Boeing is is real danger of losing arguably a 100-year reputation for building the safest planes in the sky, and now is the time for real steps to rebuild trust.
@Kerry
We seem to have some evidence as a couple of planes have dropped from the sky, all planes have been grounded now and significant numbers of pilots having indicated to not wanting to fly the plane again unless the stability issue is addressed (not ‘forced compensated’ by software). I get my info from international sources that likely/possibly are more independent than US sources. Read eg the statement that AF/KLM pilots made recently. When pilots have doubts, so have I.
I have been long enough in corporate life to recognize the stages that Boeing is going through, there is unfortunately a quite standard sequence that corporates go through after they have messed up.
Boeing is still in denial phase and meanwhile releases every other day (no doubt recommended by their PR department) some press releases on software fixes with the intent to make it sound all pretty minor.
Now, Boeing may be able to start leaning with some money on some US congress men to get them to make the right noises and and challenge the grounding ban, in the rest of the world this is not going to work.
I am sure you are aware that most regulators now, instead of relying on FAA, will do their own certifications. They are going to be strict, demanding and thus it will take months before these things fly again, assuming they pass the tests of course.
@ron,
I do not live in the US, therefore much of my reading on this is from non-US sources as well for what it’s worth, although I have found reporting worldwide on this to be on a par.
I am not excusing Boeing here from making the apparently disastrous decision to allow a single point of failure to affect aircraft flight through this software system. However, as I stated above there is no evidence that the aircraft is too unstable to fly without the MCAS software – on the contrary the evidence is, as I am sure you are well aware if you head read up on it as much as you claim, that the software, reacting to a faulty instrument reading, forced the aircraft nose down in both crashes.
Continuing to just repeat that the physical design is itself unstable makes it sound like you’re being deliberately obtuse to try and make a point.
I also think making snide implications that the FAA is deeply corrupt, since you state Boeing will get the ban lifted inside the US by “throwing money at a few congressmen” is both unfair and naive. While plenty of questions need to be asked about the certification process involved with the MAX software, the implication that aviation authorities in the rest of the world are less political or less influenced by corporate interactions is laughable.
@Kerry
I do not think that politicians and regulators anywhere in the world are immune for financial incentives.
In most of the world however the corporate interference in politics is much better controlled. There is plenty of material about who runs the US and how.
Having said that I have nothing to gain or lose on how Boeing comes out of this. The questions with regards to the 737 Max design were not raised by me, but by Boeing engineers.
Anyway it is a free world so feel free to think I am just a ranting idiot.
Music which was playing for years accidentally stopped, now they want to get the music going again asap so this half/acceptance and quick word around within weeks they will get things back in the air. In the end they have dividends to pay and that’s what he is after. In my memory this is first time company producing aircrafts was caught, really caught …what they should do? Rip them off (company, ceo , other bosses ) with such significant fines that this would be lesson to other aircraft companies and ppl working there will think 50 times before rolling new patch.
This is an amazing article about the BoeingBoeing- Congress mafia
https://arstechnica.com/science/2019/04/spacex-likely-to-win-nasas-crew-competition-by-months-for-billions-less/?amp=1
Not sure there are any aeronautical designers speaking here but after my career of 36 years with a large company and clocking over 2 million miles on many types of aircraft and companies I would be more than happy to fly on the first flight of this aircraft without hesitation.