Muilenburg opening statement to Senate

Oct. 28, 2019: Boeing released the opening statement of CEO Dennis Muilenburg to the US Senate at a hearing scheduled for tomorrow.

The statement may be downloaded here: Opening Statement-DM-102919

18 Comments on “Muilenburg opening statement to Senate

  1. A good, well written opening statement that caters to his audience. Nice to see them admit “We know we made mistakes and got some things wrong.” Now let’s see whether “I want to answer all of your questions…” happens.

  2. Minimum accountability let alone Responsibility

    MAXimum excuses and deflections.

    Its an amazing mix of we screwed up (though not in the stark terms it needs to be) and we are victims as well (we have suffered greatly through this)

    And the beauty of a US Farm vs having killed 347 people through at the minimum gross negligence .

    All broad brush strokes, not, we looked at where, when and with who this went wrong and these are our conclusions.

    We took a safe an aircraft as there was in the sky and made it lethal.

    Pilot limitation aside (and the ever standing issue of the manual trim) the NG was safe.

    Safe to say at the end of the day he will be ripped up one side and down the other and nothing will change in his victimization.

    • Small things like the details of the so called financial package.

      Like, if you want any money now you have to sigh here?

      And why would Boeing accept any money from is own employees when it as an organization was responsible? (and who really gave that money?)

    • Hmm, “the beauty of a US Farm”? Is that a small, vegan, organic farm, a large, amber waives of grain farm, or maybe a horse farm? (LOL) “…at the minimum gross negligence.” So, following your logic train here, those evil folks at BA may have actually wanted to murder folks. Well, that’s a new one!

      • First, I do not call the people of Boeing evil. Management and system in place, damn right.

        You tell me what the correct assessment of how MCAS got to go from a problem to lethal?

        A normal day at the office?

        I have worked with safety systems for 35 years. I know how you don’t set one up and I don’t care what the flipping degree of risk is assessed at.

        There is no way this just slipped past. More than one person was involved and they either culpable or the most amazing ignorant out of touch aircraft software engineers in the Universe.

        When you cherry pick data on AOA failures knowing your data set is missing the entire real world failures?

        So, as long as you can distance yourself X amount its not murder?

        Wink wink nod nod, Joey is getting to be an issue, wink wind nod nod.

        Or, we don’t want any delays, wink wink, nod nod.

        Just another day at the White Crime Lab?

        You tell me what you think this was and is.

        • There are some real issues with ethics, professional liability and responsibility going on here. I know everyone wants to scalp Muilenburg but there is a level of personal ethics at some level. Humans are very flawed. Everyone knows that such systems should have triplication or at least duplication. The psychological process, the ‘group think’ and perhaps weakness of character that was involved with so many people getting ‘with the program’ to retain the B737 MAX’s type rating (as had been sold to customers in 2011) by hiding MCAS (justifying it with no burdening the pilot) is probably the most fascinating aspect of this. Johnathan Haidt’s “The righteous mind” would be a good place to start of one wants to understand how people lie to themselves. One of the best protections we have is safety and quality systems which in essence are really ethical systems that need a missionary zeal.

  3. I prefer to grill my Muilenburgers to the point at which they’re well done. It’s safer that way.

  4. As if Boeing answered all questions.
    Muilenburg should be asked how many regulations are still not followed and what he is waiting for to implement them.
    “Boeing is still learning”, people thought they are experts.
    Will he really say “making the MAX even safer”, someone should reset him.

  5. Now that is GOOD!

    What I would like is to find out if he really is that clueless or he gets it and can salve his conscience (does he even have one) enough to struggle on with his millions?

    I thought that is why the CEO got the big bucks for, was to run the organization brilliantly.

    So he moves into the office and does not check out the system he inherited?

    Or is that why he was moved into that (actually two) offices was because they wanted someone who would not make waves?

  6. I would like Mr Muilenburg and Mr Hamilton discuss JATR findings and recommendations and discuss the great opportunities, for the great Boeing workforce and small communities in the beautiful country side, overflow by awesome aircraft build by Boeing defending the nation, to correct the corrupted flight safety rule making, oversight and take safety for granted / go for dollars driven culture.

  7. Oh dear. I did expect more from him. A speech written by PR and approved by the Legal team? They said the air frame did not need any new training. It does. I hope the 737MAX returns one day. But not until ALL of the regulators are totally happy the issues are all resolved.

  8. There but for the grace of god go I should be what a lot of people should be thinking. The MAX disaster could only have happened to an 50 (or 20) year old design and Muilenburg was in the seat when the chickens came home to roost. Mixed metaphors aside there are plenty of CEO’s not in this position simply because the creation of the MAX was such an odd ball. It could only happen to an aircraft that was being upgraded that was essentially being grandfathered and thereby evading currented FAR regulations (especially FAR 25.1322). Had the Boeing Board under McNerney not pfaffed about in 2010/2o11 and launched the NSA the unusual circumstances would not have arisen. Had they have upgraded the B737 with modification such as a longer landing gear oleo or installed the B787 FBW system or rather upgraded the B737 MAX to a B787 style system as the KC46 this would not have happened. Had they have gone with a new plane to American Airlines in 2011 they may never have ordered Airbus and given Boeing a blanket order for 100 LEAP engine B737.

    So what have they done? They seem to have inserted a chief engineer as a direct report to CEO to create a layer of protection. One less is this. Airliners are now being sold the 3rd world airlines. They literally need to be idiot proof. I read the Final report. Technicians kept resetting and recycling power and cleaning connectors to the ADIRU to clear the intermittent temperature related alpha sensor fault. No one had the curiosity to replace the suspect unit. The crew of the first flight continued on rather than turning back (taking a great risk) and a second hand sensor was used.

    (My own view is that the sensor should have contained its own smart electronics and connected to a data bus). In this way sensor faults are separated from connector faults)

    Any quality or safety system relies on the focus of investigations to be in discovering the fault and preventing future ones rather than allowing recrimination to develop which will destroy that discovery. ICAO Anex 13.

    Muilenburg is dead man walking but he’s tough enough to clean up the mess and then go back to dairy. It’s clear why the Board haven’t removed him yet, apart for not really being blameworthy (except for the slow grounding) they need a fall guy to front up to the Senate and Congress etc.

  9. What a disgraceful statement. No new aviation safety lessons were learned from these incidents. Please stop acting as if these accidents are part of the ever continuing process to make aviation safer. Even from an organizational perspective no new lessons were learned, except maybe for Boeing. Face it mangement of Boeing, you lost your way and fell a sleep at the wheel. You failed to recognize and learn from serious (mangement) failures in the last decade, rolling out the 787 and promising first flight was one of them, letting sales people drive the design of the 787 was the other, not accepting your loss in a tanker tender was another. It is cringe worthy that you hide behind your dedicated employees, the critisism to Boeing is directed at you the management, not the 150,000 employees – you have let them down.
    People told you that you haven’t told them enough about MCAS?? Own up to it and state that you have not informed them sufficiently, stop the legal games.
    Only positive, Boeing is taking its role to take care of the victims serious. Please do so quietly and honerably, not use it as a brand image tool. And please don’t accept donations from your employees, a simple ‘I got this’ would work better.
    Other than that, this situation is beneath you. Grow a couple, enact serious change by owning your mistakes, be humble and clear eyed.

  10. Why did you think that it was appropriate for you to call me president and attempt to get him to circumvent the safety authorities?

  11. ‘Approach all contact with clients with respect, definitely, but always on a professional-to-professional basis. If you are subservient, apologetic or lacking in confidence, the client automatically takes control and you will be lost’ So true, it is the same as going for an interview with the client, being confident, the first impression sets the tone of the whole meeting.

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