Boeing’s legacy vanished into thin air and saving it will take years
Boeing Co. Chief Executive Officer Dave Calhoun sought to rally employees reeling from a manufacturing setback, this time involving wrongly drilled holes in a crucial aircraft section — yet another blow to a company that once enjoyed a sterling reputation for building awesome flying machines.
“I have heard those outside our company wondering if we’ve lost a step. I view it as quite the opposite,” Calhoun wrote in a company memo, going on to tout the “rigor around our quality processes” at the US aircraft manufacturer. “I am proud of the team, and confident we’ll look back on this time period as when we took the necessary steps that set Boeing on the right course for the future.”
Just days into 2024, that renewed optimism was sucked right out of a gaping hole in the side of a Boeing 737 Max 9. On Jan. 5, the desk-sized cover for an optional door was cleanly ejected from the almost-new aircraft, exposing 177 people on board to the fear of being pulled into the evening sky at 16,000 feet (4,900 meters). Fortunately, no lives were lost, and the jet touched down safely in an emergency landing at Portland, Oregon.
Yet as smartphone images and video of the terrifying incident went viral worldwide, Boeing engineers, investors and, above all, the flying public, were reminded of just how far this company has fallen — and the long road to recovery that lies ahead.
Today, Boeing’s name and its troubled 737 Max model are linked to some of the worst aircraft safety and design failures in recent aviation history. Some 346 people lost their lives in the Boeing 737 Max crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 in late 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 less than five months later.
