He accused Muilenburg and Boeing of “negligence” with MCAS, which was designed with a single point of failure. In both crashes, a sensor fed erroneous signals to the system, which repeatedly guided the plane’s nose down until pilots eventually lost control.
Representative Peter DeFazio, a Democrat from Oregon, displayed slides of internal Boeing documents and emails -- some never before seen publicly -- that raised questions about the development of MCAS.
Safety Question
In one document from 2015, a Boeing employee questioned the decision to permit MCAS to be triggered by only one of the two sensors mounted on the jet’s nose. Boeing has since redesigned MCAS to prevent a repeat of such a failure, in part by incorporating readings from both angle-of-attack sensors.
“I guess the question is, why wasn’t it that way from day one?” DeFazio said.
Lawmakers and victims’ relatives also slammed Muilenburg’s compensation, which surpassed $23 million last year, up 27% from the year before. Nadia Milleron, mother of 24-year-old Ethiopian Airlines crash victim Samya Stumo, said outside the hearing room that she was outraged that Muilenburg received a bonus at all for 2018.
“He is not the human being to be doing this job, and neither is his board,” Milleron said.
Muilenburg said compensation matters were in the hands of the board.
So is his future at the Chicago-based planemaker.
“I thought he did no harm to Boeing,” said Scott Hamilton, a consultant who publishes a popular aviation news website, referring to the CEO’s appearance in Congress. “That was his mission. I do not believe the board will pull the plug on him until the Max is back in the air. And assuming that the Max is back in the air, by the time of the shareholders’ meeting next year we’re going to see a change.”