Transcripts For CNBC Squawk Alley 20240713

Mr. Forkner meant by the email i can tell you that certification, training materials are not determined by one individual in fact, let me just interrupt you again. In the over 1600 page original flight manual of boeing 737 max, the aircrafts new mcas Computer System was mentioned only once, once in 1600 pages in the glossary of abbreviated terms. So when boeing came to us and said it is the pilots, inexperienced pilots, you were lying to us as well. Senator, if i could try to respond to your question first of all, the premise that we would lie or conceal is not consistent with our values i know it is not consistent with values that youre articulating here. Let me since my time is limited move on. Would you agree that this system of certification and oversight is broken, thats the issue, that boeing lobbied congress for more delegation and now we have to reverse that delegation of authority. Would you support those le legislative efforts . Senator, again, i support taking a hard look at the delegating. I am not asking for a hard look, im asking you for a commitment here because you have the opportunity to make things right. Senator, im not familiar with particular legislation. Boeing asked for it boeing asked for the legislation that exists right now. Will you commit to supporting Reform Efforts such as many of us on this committee have advocated . Senator, well commit to participating in the Reform Efforts and providing our inputs. I agree that your input would be valuable. Im looking for input in support of reform that will stop out sourcing by the faa, and i may add the faa has been disappointing in its disclosure to us, this is an example of the disclosure, total redaction. I asked for full disclosure of documents, the faa failed to provide them i think the faa is part of the problem as well. It is the result at the end of the day of boeing rushing this process, using the chairmans term, putting profits over safety, rushing the certification process with you in charge of that certification and prioritizing speed and cost over safety and my time has expired. But folks that really deserve time here are the people who lost loved ones. Thank you, senator blumenthal lets do this. This poster is entitled mcas lives in both fccs, if you can provide a copy of that, well admit it into the record at this point without objection. Thank you thank you and mr. Hamil, let me ask you, when it says mcas lives in both fccs, what does that mean briefly. The mcas function is replicated in the two Flight Control computers on board the airplane so each Flight Control computer previously received its input from one aoa sensor on the left or right in the Software Changes Going Forward now both Flight Control computers received data from both sensors, compare it, only if they agree, theyll activate. Thank you senator moran. Thank you have you determined that the failures that resulted in tragic consequences, were they failures in policies and protocols that boeing had in place or was it a failure to comply with those protocols and policies that resulted in these consequences senator, in some cases we relied on longstanding Industry Standards, policies. Were now raising questions around those that gets back to the pilot Response Time discussion we had earlier. In some cases we missed on implementation, as i mentioned earlier with the angle of attack sensor overall we did follow the certification process and steps, but nonetheless, we learned from both these accidents and the fixes we need to make are clear. So the fixes are both in policy and in making certain that policies are followed once the new policies are in place . Senator, i believe both are true, yes. Thank you i assume there are other certification and developments at boeing that are always ongoing. Have you changed behavior and policies for certification and Development Process for other pieces of equipment, other aircraft that boeing is now proceeding toward certification . We learned but are still learning i mentioned earlier, the change to safety review board structure, thats a big substantive change, stand up of the new safety organization, alignment of the 50,000 engineers, also looking at longstanding assumptions behind how we design as we look at next generation products, the 777 x we take a comprehensive approach to the updates. As this committee looks at certification, you look at the faa, what suggestions does boeing have when you look at policies or failures at the faa . The way i would view this, we had two major organizations involved in the process, one is the manufacturer, boeing, the other is the federal agency thats there to certify. My assumption is neither one did things right what have you learned about the faa that we should know as we look at the faa now and in the future senator, we have a great deal of respect for the faa i personally worked with the faa for many years, have a great deal of respect for them and their professionals. I know the faa is also taking a hard look at all the reports and inputs and investigations and is committed to making changes. I think youve heard that from administrator dickson. Do you have recommendations what changes should be made . I dont have specific recommendations, we would be glad to follow up on that if useful. Thank you where are we now in the 737 max. Seems like every week theres a report that an airline is going to believe theyre going to have that plane flying again or that certification is nearby. What is the status senator, were in final stages of the process. We are currently testing the final Software Updates when ready, with the faas approval, we proceed to certification flight near term subsequent to that, the faas responsibility to evaluate that, issue air worthiness directive thats all work that were proceeding on over the next few weeks and months but i think it is important again that the airplane will return to service when safe. This is not time line driven we are committed to answering every question that regulators have, and the airplane will fly when everyone is convinced it is safe thats the most important thing here. It troubles me that to get to that point, certainly not that it is taking so long, i want the result you just described, the right circumstance before were flying again, but it suggests to me there were much more significant problems with the max 37 if it was previously certified and yet now it takes so long, it is something more than a glitch, something more than just a minor change that makes me concerned about the process that allowed it to be certified in the first place. What am i missing . Senator, i think you raise a good point our initial effort early this year was focused on the mcas updates that we already talked about. Around middle of the year as we were evaluating other data, we identified additional safety enhancements we could make, not something that was required for certification, but something we thought while the airplane was grounded was the right thing to do, a safety enhancement, and rather than waiting to do it later after return to service we as a company and with the faa decided that we would take the extra time for the additional Software Updates and thats the work we have been doing through the summer and into the fall. Thats designed to add Additional Software redundancies throughout Flight Control computers. Thats the final software were testing. What i want to convey, this is the culture of boeing. I understand the questions being raised but when our teams find opportunity to improve safety, that goes to the topof the list thats the top priority. If it takes time, if it takes money to do that, thats where were focused. And thats why it is taking longer than some anticipate. I request followup on your thoughts about the faa thank you. Thank you, senator moran. Senator markey, senator u dal, senator peters. Thank you, mr. Chairman let me begin by expressing my sympathies to those that lost loved ones in the two 737 max crashes. I would like to thank the families that are here today for your continued attention to safety and for working to prevent future tragedies like we saw here over the years, our Aviation System has become the safest in the world. These tragedies certainly remind us that we cannot rest safety cannot be taken for granted. Theres no doubt from what we are hearing in testimony today that many mistakes were made and consequences were unfortunately tragic the reports from technical experts underscore as Technology Becomes increasingly complex, the debate on how to move forward cant be simply about one size fits all Regulatory Regime versus a let the free market just police itself type of approach. I believe a new paradigm may need to be developed to address the regulatory challenges associated with very complex technology thats something this committee needs to weigh in very heavily as we move forward as you know, the Bp Oil Disaster in the gulf of mexico killed 11 workers, lasted 87 days, cost upwards of 65 billion, and in the wake of that disaster it was revealed the oil and gas industry had lobbied for reduced safety precautions that could have prevented that disaster we often hear in congress about how much regulations cost industry however, thoughtful regulation plays incredibly Important Role in protecting the public so im curious if boeings view on oversight has changed in the wake of this tremendous human tragedy as well as the cost this company is facing right now. Has your view changed . You talked earlier in response to an earlier question about having a balance clearly something is wrong with that balance please let me know if your thoughts have changed recently senator, my thoughts have changed. We have learned lessons from these two accidents and the families that are here with us today, the pictures we saw, theyre heartbreaking. They remind us of the importance of the work we do and the paramount importance on safety thats what makes this industry great and strong oversight is part of the fabric of our industry, always has been. And i think this should give us pause to take a hard look at that you said we need to look at the balance. Has the balance gone too far allowing industry to police itself senator, i dont know if i can characterize it that way my sense is that we all have the same objective here, we all want the safest industry possible thats our objective and my sense is that we could look at the balance, that there are refinements that would be worthy i think technology do you think it is out of balance now based on what happened here, do you think we have to not just take a look at it but seriously understand the balance may be out of whack if we delegate too much to industry and dont have impartial eyes, make sure the Regulatory Regime is looking at these factors. It is going to save lives, wont put a company through the costs you have when you balance regulations. Is it out of balance now, yes or no senator, again, i think it can be improved. I completely agree with you on the importance of strong oversight. I worked in this industry more than three decades, from airplanes to spacecraft. Peoples lives depend on what we do, and strong oversight from the government is a key to our successful safety of our industry i think we have a shared objective there. And we will work with you on examining any improvements we can make we have a mutual interest. The ntsb report indicated the faa and industry have historically used highly trained test pilots to verify safety of new aircraft models, rather than average pilots who typically have less experience does boeing use pilots with average training and experience . Senator, our boeing test pilots are experienced, highly qualified pilots we work with airlines, the faa, the regulators to bring in other pilots from around the world as part of the evaluation but i think as youre pointing out, as we look to the future, we want to be sure the testing is that future pilot population. Thank you thank you, senator peters thank you, mr. Chairman thank the Ranking Member as well i want to say first of all to families that are here my, extending my sympathies and my gratitude for you coming forward through your pain to bring to us to congress, which is not easy to do, your frustrations and probably stronger feelings in the loss of your loved ones. I will say that when flight 3407 went down in buffalo in th early 2009, the families that came forward to us, i was on Transportation Committee in the house side, made such incredible impact and made flying on Regional Airlines much, much safer because of that. So hopefully thats what the results of this is for you today and for all of us. Mr. Mullenburg, particular attention has been called to the fact that boeing in the late err Development Process of the max revised flight conditions that could lead to activation of mcas but that boeing did not notify the faa of changes at the time this is troubling if in fact this is true was boeing not obligated by the faa to report changes like the ones i just described . Senator, i believe youre referring to low speed extension of mcas. Yes. I have seen the same reports, but they do not reflect the facts. The extension of mcas low speeds was done in a rigorous way, done in a very visible way. There was testing done on that from the mid 2016 time frame to early 2017 time frame, including flight tests, including flight tests with the faa on board. The faa was aware of the low speed extension and ultimately certified that and i believe faa leadership has publicly stated thats a false report then . I believe it is a false report i believe low speed extension was fully certified with the faa. Another report thats been out in the media and among is that after the second flight went down that boeing actually actively lobbied the faa to keep the planes in the air. Can you respond to that . Senator, could you clarify your question . Yes after the second plane with Ethiopian Air went down, there was several countries had expressed, limited the flight of that plane we had not done that yet in the United States. There are media reports that boeing was actively lobbying the faa to keep the planes in the air at that time in this country. Is that true senator, let me clarify what was happening in that time frame. Could you make it brief, please yes immediately after the accident we reached out to the faa and other regulatory authorities to understand what happened in the accident what has made aviation safe is that we make decisions based on data at that point we didnt have data, so we with the faa were looking to understand what happened there were early reports that the airplane had some kind of low speed, low altitude problem that turned out to be incorrect, so we with the faa were pursuing data to make a good safety based decision that was our position with the faa. When data became available, satellite data that was referred to in the media, again, with the faa we came to conclusion that there could be similarities between the two accidents and that led very quickly to decision to ground the fleet well, i think, you know, in retrospect i think it was pretty obvious, i dont want to say conclusively so, but there was a problem and a consistent problem. The other thing thats bothered me about this whole thing, i requested this in the last committee hearing. Between the lion air crash and Ethiopian Air crash, it defies logic to me that some of the folks that wrote emails didnt come to you and to expertise and engineering of the engines of the planes and say this is what we were talking about. Was there any reaction at all like that within your company after the lion air crash, dont tell me because you didnt have the official report, that would have maybe saved those people in that Ethiopian Airplane. Senator, i think about that decision over and over every day. If we knew everything back then that we know now, we would have made a different decision. The question, did people come to you at the highest level, at any level, say wait a minute, this is sounding familiar . Yes or no. Senator, after the first accident we convened our broad Technical Team across boeing it wasnt any single individuals or small team, it was a broad team we brought all of the experts to bear, trying to assemble data from the accident, understanding what occurred. We quickly with the faa issued an operational bullet or bulletin to remind everyone of the training and emergency scenario. Around that particular system around what we called run away stabilizer, which again is the effect of that system. And at the same time, we began work on an mcas Software Update in that time frame. So the answer is yes. Thank you. Mr. Chairman, one point of clarification, are you saying that the faa did know about the 2. 5 trim, not. 6, but 2. 5, that faa knew about that . Senator, youre referring to the low speed extension which is the 2. 5 degree trim. That is the low speed extension. The faa did know about that and participated, yes. Senator udall thank you, mr. Chairman, thank you to the Ranking Member for having this hearing. Mr. Mullenburg, i first want to say to all people that stood up, very moved by you being here and your losses are very, very i think heartfelt across the committee here you know, the thing that really bothers me is knowing that it is preventable, it makes it even more outrageous that we havent made the kind of dramatic changes that i want to talk to the ceo here about you showed some emotion when these folks stood up and everything, what should come from that emotion is some action to do something to really make a difference for this committee to coalesce around asolution that moves us forward would require you to step forward and specifically say what you support and i havent seen you do that in all of the questioning. You have been asked over and over, what would you support i mean, it is absolutely clear that it is too cozy a relationship with the faa and your airline, so what is it youre going to commit to specifically in terms of reform . Thats why youre up here. Thats what we want to see you do is to weigh in with us, this is what would make a difference, this is what would make it safer, this is what would make sure we dont lose passengers like this in the future or the crew senator, while i respectfully dont agree with the characterization of coziness with the faa, we respect the independent oversight of the faa and thats very important to us from a safety principle standpoint we have taken a number of internal actions that we think are meaningful as relate to our own internal reforms on safety we are engaged in the legislative process. And senator, i appreciate your invitation for us there are many stakeholders we are committed to strong oversight in the Aerospace Industry it is part of what makes the system safe. We have a shared objective there are things to do to make it better, we will i dont know, john, if you have any specific ideas. Thank you senator, you know, i would say that one of the big issues was we made an Industry Standard assumption on pilots, how they would react. That proved incorrect in the two accidents. In terms of things that we need to change at the faa, we need to revisit some regulatory guidances, make sure theyre up to date. I would even tell you theres probably some regulations that we advocate as part of the faa reauthorization bill, ten regulations that faa should work with industry to update based on technology thats out there today. In terms of coziness, i used to be the lead administrator for the oea, i can tell you that we have a respectful relationship with the faa, but we do have our differences of opinion sometimes, but we discuss those, we work it out on how were going to comply, and it is not a cozy relationship. It is a professional relationship. It is a relationship that didnt work for the consumers and for your employees that went down in those flights. You and others in your company blamed the deceased pilots and the culture of the countries where the crashes occurred for the accidents. But from what weve seen in the last year since the first crash, it appears that boeings own culture is more blame worthy for installing a faulty system that resulted in too many deaths and could have caused more this culture starts at the top thats why i have been asking you for the s hearing you will come forward and when theres legislation out there, say this is going to make it better, and come up here, spend some time to build a consensus to get this done because i think the large powerful interests that are part of this dont want any reform they want you to tinker around like youre talking about but dont want to see any reform if boeing could not guarantee that pilots were prepared to fly these jets, your company should not have sold them did anyone at boeing question, hesitate or raise any issues prior to selling the 737 max 8 with this software to lion air or Ethiopian Air senator, first we look forward to responding to your request and providing inputs on reforms. To your question, we do rely on the airlines and regulatory authorities around the world as part of this integrated system to make sure we are fielding airplanes and crews that fly safely it is important to clarify a point you made earlier we have not blamed pilots, i but that is not our Company Position and it never will be we are responsible for our airplanes. We are responsible we own that. Regardless of cause. Any accident with one of our airplanes is unacceptable. Change is welcome, but that culture went from your Company Early on thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you lets do this at this point, mr. Mullenburg, the 12 main recommendations, will both of you get back to us on the record and tell boeings position with regard to 12 recommendations senator, we will. Thank you senator markey is next thank you, mr. Chairman let me begin by recognizing the families who lost so much on this flight. Many of you are here today, including the parents of a university of massachusetts graduate and resident of sheffield, massachusetts who was tragically killed on the ethiopian flight the losses that the family and all of the families suffered is absolutely inexcusable we will remember that as we are moving forward in drafting of legislation. We will do it in the memory of your families. One thing is clear to make sure safety is our top, top priority is to guarantee that every aviation safety measure is built into every plane and that it is never for sale unfortunately, our current laws only prevent aircraft manufacturers like boeing from selling critical safety elements for an additional price. Existing rules allow companies to charge extra for noncritical safety enhancing features, and boeing actually does charge more for those technologies the 737 involved in the indonesian crashes lacked two, two safety enhancing features. An angle of attack indicator, and disagree light both these technologies would have helped pilots recognize faulty sensor readings were causing the automated Flight Control system to push the aircraft nose down towards the ground with that knowledge, pilots may have been able to take more effective action to prevent crashes. In fact, the indonesian crash report released last week cited lack of disagree light on the 737 max as contributing to the lion air strategy. Shame ful shamefully, the law allows them to treat these as allah cadd on, safety, not like xm radio, or leather seats, safety is an add on feature these tragic crashes made it all too clear there should not be any distinction between critical and noncritical safety enhancing features thats why introduced safety is not for sale legislation my bill requires aircraft manufacturers like boeing to offer or provide any technology that measurably enhances safety without charge to Airline Carriers if you believe that safety should never be for sale, the question is why was it now, you seem to now recognize that the disagree light should be standard. But you have yet to say the same about the angle of attack indicator, and whether or not that should be offered for free, or whether or not each airline should be given the option of not building it into the plane for free so i think you have to make a decision here in terms of where youre going to go, otherwise your disagree light is still on, coming from boeing towards these safety features. This is the Senate Committee on commerce science and transportation, boeing ceo testifying there we want to get an update on what weve heard from phil lebeau phil you look at this testimony in the last hour, hour and 15 minutes, however long it has been, for the most part, Dennis Mullenburg stuck to the script we expected him to stick with, we understand we made mistakes, were going to rectify the situation in the future, we will learn from this, we have learned a painful lesson here. He has only had really hard questions from a few of the senators, both of them hit at the main question which is when did you know that this was an issue, and should you have been alerted sooner in the development and building of the very first couple of maxes that the mcas situation is one that could ultimately lead to a crash. For the most part, he handled those questions the way i expected him to, which is to say we were working with the faa, we went through the certification process, if we can amend it, we will thats what were seeing so far. When mullenburg says we have not blamed the pilots, does that reflect your understanding of their early defense . They never came out and blamed the pilots. Technically he is correct there, but when you talked with people who were working on this, whether it was within boeing or with the faa, one of the things they did bring up was look, the relative lack of experience with these pilots, whether it was with ethiopia or lion air was a factor in other words they were not responsible for planes crashing, but it was a factor. We saw this with the report from lion air, there was so much happening in the cockpit that their handling of the situation in the final minutes there, it was a factor that contributed to the crash. So you walk a fine line, carl, where they didnt blame the pilots, but everybody from the beginning has said the lack of experience with these pilots when it comes to mcas was a contributing factor. Phil, i am curious about what seems to be the wall street reaction to this boeing stock is up 1 , sort of marched steadily higher since he started testifying has anything that he has said triggered this or is it more just reflection of how he is handling questions from senators i think, morgan, this is reflection of the fact after the next couple of days, the rest of today and then tomorrow on the house side, nothing will change with regard to the backlog boeing has with the 737 max, nor is anything likely to change in the next couple of years and if you believe theyll ultimately get the plane back in the air, certified by end of the year, back in Service Early next year, you believe this is almost a delayed cash flow situation where theyre going to catch up rapidly in the next year as an investor, thats what youre focused on, not as much on the process and how he is handling the questions phil lebeau, bringing that needed perspective lets get back into the hearing. Senator tammy duckworth, democrat from illinois now questioning the boeing ceo let me talk about what has happened here. You put a sensor on the aircraft which is standard, but you allowed that sensor to override the pilots input in the system. So in every other 737 aircraft theres the function of the you can pull back, the pilot can cut out, override that nose down that is standard thats the basic assumption as you said, you used an Industry Standard how a pilot would react to a malfunction like that nose down, every pilot including helicopter pilots, you pull back what you did is you put an mcas system into an aircraft, didnt tell the pilots this system was in there, and you put in a function in order for mcas to work the way you want it to work, after the pilot does the reaction to uncommanded nose down, every other 737, cut out, thats the end of it in the 737 max, after five seconds the system resets and pushes the nose back down. The pilots had three seconds to pull nose down, pull up, now we have to do a new procedure that didnt exist in previous 737 models, the electronic cut out switch, because you have not put into a system that overrides the pilot in command of the aircraft you have been telling the committee that yes, you used basic pilot reactions, thats true, but you have not been telling the whole truth. Time and again, this is my flus tra frustration, boeing hasnt told the truth to the committees and families yes, the pilots did what they were supposed to do, but five seconds later, especially if the sensor is still stuck, it overrides what the pilot does and pushes theose back down again. Three seconds. A pilots best friend is time and altitude on takeoff, theres no altitude. And he has no time you set those pilots up for failure. When i sent a letter, asking you to answer several questions, took boeing over five months to respond to my question i only got the answers the day before you and i met one of the questions i asked was what date did boeing discover that a stock angle of attack aim would result in mcas issuing persistent commands with Unlimited Authority to trim the airplane nose down in laymans terms, if this is stuck, mcas will continue to provide faulty directions, keep pushing the nose down over and over, no matter how many times an experienced pilot pulls back, reset, five seconds later, nose down you knew in 2016 you knew in 2016 that this was happening. And your team at boeing decided we didnt need to fix that because of well understood piloting techniques and procedures the problem is the procedure is to pull back, thats it. But you added Something Else you put in a system and didnt tell pilots about, then you put in an override by resetting the system five seconds later. Boeing is the company that build the flying fortress that saved europe i remember watching b17s flying above. It is a storied aircraft that rescued the free world and yet you knew about these problems and you continue to put them into place. When we asked you to answer these questions, you have told this committee and you told me half truths over and over again, including in that meeting. This is why im so upset you have not told us the whole truth and these families are suffering because of it. Thank you, senator duckworth. Members of the committee, at this point senator scott is deferring his time to the chairman of the subcommittee, cruz youre recognized for five minutes. Thank you, mr. Chairman mr. Mullenburg, i have to say the testimony here today has been quite dismaying i want to focus on the Text Exchange referred to and has been publicly reported on. This was a Text Exchange between mark forkney, technical pilot for the max, chief technical pilot for the max, and mr. Gustafson who in 2018 was promoted to being boeings 737 chief technical pilot. Is that right . I believe thats the case, senator. So this exchange is stunning. Mr. Forkner, shocker alert mcas is down to m 2. It is running rampant in the sim on me. At least thats what vince thinks is happening. Gustafsons response oh great, that means we have to update the speed triple description in volume two. Mr. Forkner, so basically i lied to the regulators unknowingly. Gustafson, it wasnt a lie. No one told us that was the case im leveling off at 4,000 feet, 230 knots, the plane is trimming itself like crazy. Im like what . Gustafson. Thats what i saw on sim one but on approach. I think thats wrong forkner, granted, i suck as flying, but even this was egregious. That exchange described what happened in lion air and Ethiopian Air. The men and women gathered here with photos of your loved ones, 346 people are dead because what these chief pilots described as egregious and crazy, thats their language, thats boeings internal language in this exchange now, what i find truly stunning, boeing handed this exchange over to department of justice in february in march i chaired a hearing of the aviation subcommittee on the two crashes. Boeing did not see fit to give this committee that exchange nor did boeing give it to the faa or department of transportation but what i find most stunning is your testimony here today that you said you first learned of this exchange a couple of weeks ago. These are Senior Leaders at boeing in an exchange saying, and i will quote again, so i basically lied to the regulators i practiced law a lot of years you had your lawyers look over this document and they read a Senior Leader after the crashes occurred saying they lied to the regulators mr. Mullenburg, how in the hell did nobody bring this to your attention in february when you produced this to department of justice . How did you just read this a couple weeks ago senator, again, to clarify my earlier comments, i was made aware of existence of this kind of document, this issue as part of that discovery process in the investigation, early in the year as you pointed out at that point i counted on counsel to handle that appropriately. Did you read this exchange . Look, i was made aware documents were being produced, that is passive voice and disclaiming responsibility youre the ceo, the buck stops with you did you read this document and how did your team not put it in front of you, run in with their hair on fire saying we have a real problem here. How did that not happen and what does that say about the culture at boeing if they didnt give it to you and you didnt read it and if you didnt say i want to read and see what happens. Your testimony here earlier today is well, were not sure what they were talking about because he is not at boeing any more how did you not in february set out a nine alarm fire to say we need to figure out exactly what happened, not after all of the hearings, not after pressure, because 346 people have died and we dont want another person to die. Senator, as you mentioned, i didnt see the details of this exchange until recently. Were not quite sure what mr. Forkner meant by the exchange his lawyer suggested he was talking about a simulator investment in that time period thats where he was working. That could be the case we dont know. I fully support diving deep into this, understanding what he said, what he meant. But i can also tell you that in that same time frame where his original message was made mr. Gustafson still works at boeing yes, he does. Have you had that conversation with him . Senator, my team has talked with patrick as well. Have you had that conversation senator, i have not my time expired thank you, senator cruz senator tester lets do this. The entire post, if you can have that reduced in size, we will enter it into the record without objection. So ordered senator tester thank you, mr. Chairman want to thank you and the Ranking Member for this hearing. I know for the two folks on the panel this morning, it is probably a painful morning for you, but the fact is it is infinitely more painful for folks sitting a couple rows behind you you have said many times, mr. Muilenburg, that mistakes were made, and obviously they were unfortunately that admission was made after 346 people died there are a lot of reasons an airplane can go down, pilot air, equipment malfunction or birds but safety should not be one of them in a previous question, you said you guys dont sell safety and ill be honest with you, i didnt listen to the whole thing, but you damn well better sell safety. I fly four days a week, not for the grace of god could have been me on one of the airplanes we expect there to be safety obviously something went wrong and it is not the first time theres the mcas situation here pointed out as several people on the committee have pointed out to you, and nothing was done, or to your leadership team. There was a South Carolina whistleblower talked about debris being left in planes, those technicians were removed theres a kc46 finding, wrench bolts and trash inside airplanes in june. You get the deal it goes on so the question is the one that senator udall that you didnt answer and others on the committee brought up, that is what do we do, what do you do . Ill be a little more specific i do believe theres a cozy relationship, and i dont believe that quite frankly time and money are no object because theres plenty of examples, for example, in 2014, faa made regulatory changes to Safety Standards that would have required changes to add new crew alerts boeing appealed to the faa, seeking exemption, arguing it would cost too much money, 10 million, a lot of money. But truth is, it wouldnt have happened if faa had been doing their job and also wouldnt have happened if you knew what the hell was going on. My question is, and i know there was a push a flum of decades ago about privatization of federal government i think thats how we got here, privatization of government, but why dont we just turn over the certification back to the faa, let them do it, they would be the one sitting at the desk today and not you. Why not do that . Senator, we share your focus on safety. And i can confidently say that is our number one priority. Cool. But we failed in this case and there are a bunch of people going through incredible anguish because we failed. Senator, i agree. And we feel terrible about that. Lets get to the question i can pivot with the best of them i know how to pivot. Youre pivoting. Tell me if you would support having the faa do the certification. Senator, we believe that delegated authority process that we have today that has contributed to improve safety in the last two decades, i mentioned earlier, we are open to improving it, but the idea that that we can tap the deep Technical Expertise of Companies Across the Aerospace Industry is a valuable part of the certification process. But the faa is the Certification Authority and should be and should continue to be. Well, but they really arent. The truth is, you can say they have the ultimate responsibility but the truth is certification. It costs you money, and we could charge you money for that, so it would have no reflection on the taxpayers. Ill tell you what, when the faa says you didnt need to do this, you come in and say you dont need do this, its fine when nothing happens. But when 350 people die, we have a problem. You bring up the point that senator cruz brought up, there was plenty of information out there on this and nothing was done so the whole thing about, you know, when it comes to safety time and money are no object, its not the record certainly doesnt show that. Senator, i understand your points and criticism and i think its true that we operate in a competitive world we are the only large airplane commercial airplane maker left in the United States. We have competitive pressures, but that never takes precedence over safety. I think it could be argued it did in this case i heard senator duckworths questions, boeing has had an incredibly valuable name i have to tell you, i think i toll you this in the office some time ago i would walk before i was to get on a 737 max i would walk theres no way the question becomes when issues like this happen it costs your company huge so you shouldnt be cutting corners. I see corners being cut. This committee will have to do something to stop that from happening. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you i will ask that mr. Muilenburg answer on the record his opinion of the current oda system, whether it should be modified. Answer senator testers question senator johnson . Let me add my condolences to the surviving family members and friends of the victims of these tragedies. Mr. Muilenburg, among many failures, there are two primary failures first and foremost in the design and certification process, secondly in the reaction after the first crash. Tell me if im getting this right. The 737, very Successful Air frame. New more fuel efficient engines were available so you wanted to include that in an upbraid of that air frame, correct . New fuel efficient engines and other enhancements those fuel efficient engines created a different aerodynamic system, is that correct . Thats correct. The mcass system, is it standard to have Something Like that senator, the mcass system on the max is unique to that plane. It was put in there because you added a different type of engine to a Successful Air frame which made that less stable and required a as you called it, a runway stabilizing system. Senator, if i can clarify that, the 737 family has something called a speed trim system the mcass is an extension of that system for the max. Because of that added engine desig design we tailor the software of each one of our airplanes so they optimize the handling qualities for each airplane configuration. Going into the introduction of this 737 max, you realize that that air frame was changed because those engines required this mcas system for stabilization. That is one of the additions we made to create the handling qualities for the pilots we also made some changes to things like the vortex generators on the wings. Its an integrated solution. But you were well aware that this Design Change created something that required an mcas system now fast forward you have the lion air tragedy. According to senator cruz, the email that he sent up there, which i believe was written on november 15, 2016, just a couple weeks a that lion air crash, there are people, it sure appears at boeing, who knew exactly or certainly suspected what went wrong because the integrated design, you had an mcas system to take care of this eventuality in the flight character, correct senator, again, im not exactly sure what was meant by that traffic, that email traffic. I can tell new that timeframe it seems obvious, doesnt it . Again, you are you are engineers. You understand how this was designed you understood you needed an mcas system to make up for that instability. Then something happened. I would think diagnosed pretty fast im reading these things im not a pilot. Im not an aerospace engineer. Im scratching my head going whoa, something really wrong happened you knew a whole lot why didnt you react faster . Senator, completely separate from that email traffic and what it might mean, our team quickly after the lion air accident assembled with the regulators, we evaluated the data from the accident we saw that mcas was involved. And so we began to take quick action immediately doesnt have do with that email. Thats not relevant to that discussion our team was immediately identifying that which is exactly my point the fact that it took another tragedy to actually ground the airplane so you could actually have a true a fix that worked is, i think, whats on the table here the diagnosis is why didnt we react . Why didnt we ground that aircraft sooner so another tragedy would not happen we asked that question over and over and if we knew everything back then that we know now we would have made a different decision the decision that was made at that point with the data we had, we quickly convened a safety review board the faa coming out of that confirmed the continuing airworthiness of the airplane and issued that officially that was the safety case that was built. Senator, as you point out, we have learned from the second accident and different decision we have learned. We are making those improvements to mcas. G is an important company. Its important for economy i want to see you get this right. But you ve diagnosis this you have to accept responsibility for what happened so we actually can make those changes. Both within boeing and also within the faa thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you, senator johnson. Senator rosen . Thank you i want to thank all the families that are here today who lost theircious loved ones. Their deaths should not be in vain, we all have to do our part together to make sure we prevent future tragedies from happening. In order to honor the memories of these 346 souls and the empty chairs that they will leave behind this thanksgiving and christmas and on and on and on so you said Additional Information was not available. I want to touch a little bit on mcas in brazil according to news reports when the Brazilian National Civil Aviation agencycame to the u. S in 2017 to test out the max 8 they determined changes made to the old 737 were significant enough they needed much more information from boeing and were going to provide it for their pilots when they eventually published their Pilot Training requirements, they were able to flag the mcas as one of the changes the pilots needed to take into consideration when flying the max 8 yet for United States pilots mcas wasnt mentioned in the manual mr. Muilenburg, why was this information not flagged for your other customers who had 737 maxes in your fleet . Did you prevent these companies from sharing this information from operating bodies . I have the brazilian manual. They decided their pilots should learn this why wouldnt you provide it to the United States pilots senator, i cant comment on the details of the brazilian document john may be able to. Let me more broadly make the point that thats exactly how the process is supposed to work. We provide information, we evaluate with the regulators in the various jurisdictions what should be included in the trainingment we have no desire to hide features of the airplane they reported back to you that it was significant enough for them to put this in their manual yep why wouldnt you consider that it was a significant change senator, i understand your point. That was a decision that was made in brazil im not familiar with the details of that one. Let me just ask you this question then. Moving forward, will you commit to making it a practice when other countries are clearly paying attention enough to make significant changes to their pilot manuals based on major operational changes that boeing will send these notifications of changes to the other users of these aircrafts so at least they have the opportunity to train their pilots you denied them the opportunity, sir. Senator, we are committed to sharing that information and thats part of our international collaboration. But i also want to note again that the discussion around mcas training and whether it would be included in the training manuals, that was an active iterative discussion with the faa. It was a decision made on safety we try to put information in the training manuals that focuses on the effects of