The U.S. Senate Commerce Committee announced a forthcoming hearing with members of an expert panel that criticized Boeing‘s safety culture in a February report.
This decision comes amid ongoing concerns over Boeing’s reputation following a mid-air panel blowout on a 737 MAX 9 aircraft in January, sparking a safety crisis.
The company has since witnessed significant management changes, production curbs imposed by regulators, and a 50% reduction in aircraft deliveries in March.
Scheduled for next Wednesday, the hearing will feature testimony from three-panel members: Tracy Dillinger, a NASA safety culture expert, Javier de Luis, an aeronautics expert from MIT, and Najmedin Meshkati, an aviation safety expert from the University of Southern California.
Senator Maria Cantwell, the committee chair, expressed interest in the expert panel’s report and aims to gather insights from its members before calling the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for future hearings.
Boeing declined to comment on the scheduled hearing. The expert panel’s report was commissioned by Congress following two fatal crashes involving the 737 MAX in Indonesia and Ethiopia, resulting in 346 fatalities, including the sister of panel member Javier de Luis.
The report criticized Boeing’s safety culture, highlighting a lack of awareness of safety metrics and inadequate implementation of components of a positive safety culture.
The FAA ordered Boeing to address systemic quality-control issues within 90 days following an audit revealing faults in the company’s manufacturing processes.
The Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations plans to hear testimony from a Boeing whistleblower and company engineer Sam Salehpour, who alleges the dismissal of safety and quality concerns in the production of 787 and 777 jets.
Senator Richard Blumenthal, the panel’s chair, noted Salehpour’s testimony would focus on Boeing’s “broken safety culture.”
Boeing responded to Salehpour’s claims, expressing full confidence in the 787 and asserting the inaccuracies in Salehpour’s allegations.
