After months of technical failures, injuries and mid-air danger, the head of Boeing announced he is stepping down at the end of the year.
Company president and CEO Dave Calhoun and other senior company leaders announced they were leaving in a statement released early Monday morning.
The announcements come as the plane maker faces a series of issues, including a door plug being torn out of a plane in mid-air in January, tires falling off other planes, and most recently, a sudden drop in a plane’s altitude that hurt at least 50 people.
In a letter to employees also released Monday, Calhoun wrote that the Alaska Airlines Flight 1282 (the flight from which the door plug fell) was a watershed moment for the company.
Several U.S. government agencies have begun probing the corporate giant, with one revealing the company is not as committed to safety as it claims.
“We must continue to respond to this accident with humility and complete transparency. We also must inculcate a total commitment to safety and quality at every level of our company,” he wrote.
“We are going to fix what isn’t working, and we are going to get our company back on the track towards recovery and stability.”
A Boeing whistleblower was recently found dead one day after testifying against the company.
In response to another, Calhoun said he couldn’t disclose who worked on a panel that blew of the plane.
Earlier this month the Department of Justice launched a criminal investigation into the Alaska Airlines flight, as the Wall Street Journal first reported.
The company’s statement Monday said Calhoun would stay on until the end of the year to “complete the critical work underway to stabilize and position the company for the future.”
The statement also announced Boeing’s chairperson Larry Kellner won’t stand for re-election at the company’s upcoming annual shareholder meeting and that the head of the company’s commercial airplanes section Stan Deal will retire and be replaced by chief operating office Stephanie Pope effective immediately.
That’s in addition to the head of the troubled 737 MAX program previously announcing he would leave last month.
Steve Mollenkopf will succeed Kellner to lead the board’s selection of the next CEO.
—with files from Global News’ Kathryn Mannie, Sean Boyton and Sarah Do Couto, The Associated Press and Reuters
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