Boeing has submitted documents about the 737 Max mess that "seem to point to a very disturbing picture" of how the aerospace and defense giant has handled the scandal, a congressional source in the US told the AFP news agency.
The documents about the crashed planes were sent to the FAA in the afternoon and to congressional investigators "late in the evening" on Monday - just when many had gone on holiday.
The timing is noteworthy, especially as there has previously been criticism of overly friendly ties between Boeing and regulatory authorities.
For example, NASA chief Jim Bridenstine was overjoyed after last week's test of the Starliner spacecraft, which Boeing was set to fly an empty capsule to the International Space Station (ISS) for future passenger flights. The capsule ended up in the wrong orbit and never reached the ISS, but Bridenstine signaled that the test was so successful that it may not need to be repeated.
The contents of the documents that have now been handed over have not been made public. But AFP's source writes that "the papers seem to paint a very disturbing picture, both of concerns expressed by Boeing employees about the company's line on safety, and efforts by some employees to ensure that Boeing's production plans were not influenced by regulatory authorities or anyone else.".
The aviation giant had built and delivered close to 400 copies of the large-scale 737 Max when two catastrophic accidents, in October last year and in March this year, caused authorities around the world to revoke the plane's flight permit.
Since then, Boeing has tried to convince the FAA that the company is updating and upgrading both its procedures and the aircraft, but the agency has not set a date for when it might give the go-ahead for the plan again.
Meanwhile, production has continued in Washington state until the other week, and Boeing now has another 400 fully built planes that cannot be delivered as long as the flight shutdown continues.
The fiasco led to CEO Dennis Muilenburg being removed from his role as Boeing's chairman of the board last fall, and on Monday he was also fired as CEO.
However, stock market commentators are not entirely convinced after the leadership change, which means that David Calhoun will become both chairman of the board and CEO.
”Boeing’s failures with the Max are not just about poor communication, so it is important for Mr. Calhoun to quickly demonstrate what he will do differently,” JP Morgan Chase wrote in an analysis. ”This is especially important because he has been a director (within Boeing) since 2009, and thus part of this situation from the beginning, albeit in an oversight role.”.
Source: TT
