Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun has admitted that the company has retaliated against whistleblowers during a US Senate special hearing about the safety of its aircraft.
Calhoun told senators he was aware some employees had seen retaliation after raising safety concerns at the troubled manufacturer during the “Boeing’s Broken Safety Culture” hearing, which came soon after another whistleblower went public.
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The hearing featured a number of tense exchanges between senators and the CEO, who will step down at the end of this year, including an accusation that Calhoun was “strip mining” Boeing for profit from Republican Senator Josh Hawley.
The proceedings also saw Calhoun tell senators that he “strongly” believed in accountability and admitted that the company was responsible for the fatal crashes of two 737 MAX planes in 2018 and 2019.
However, the CEO refuted the claim that Boeing, which had hidden the software error responsible for the crashes from regulators, knew that the issue would lead to a crash.
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By GlobalDataCalhoun stood up in the middle of his testimony to apologise to the families of victims from the two crashes who attended the hearing and said he was “totally committed” to the safety of Boeing’s aircraft in the future.
Alongside the growing list of high-profile aircraft issues and damning reports into its quality control, the company has also been dealing with a number of government hearings and investigations focused on the accusations of whistleblowers.
Earlier this year, Boeing employee Sam Salehpour also spoke to US Congress about his experience raising concerns about the production of 787 Dreamliner aircraft, telling politicians that he was harassed and berated after speaking up.
During the most recent hearing, committee chair Richard Blumenthal said that the government had seen “more than a dozen” whistleblowers step forward to voice concerns and urged others to contact regulators.
The event came just weeks after Boeing admitted it was investigating another quality issue, this time on undelivered 787 aircraft fitted with hundreds of incorrectly installed fasteners on the fuselage.
