US lawmakers are expected to press Boeing's chief executive on Tuesday about the company's latest plan to fix its manufacturing problems, and relatives of people who died in two crashes of Boeing 737 Max jetliners plan to be in the room, watching him. CEO David Calhoun is scheduled to appear before the Senate investigations subcommittee, which is chaired by Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., a Boeing critic. The hearing will mark the first appearance before Congress by Calhoun or any other high-ranking Boeing official since a panel blew out of a 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. No one was seriously injured in the incident, but it raised fresh concerns about the company's best-selling commercial aircraft. The National Transportation Safety Board and the Federal Aviation Administration are conducting separate investigations. From the beginning, we took responsibility and cooperated transparently with the NTSB and the FAA, Calhoun said in remarks prepared for the
Since two Boeing 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed a combined 346 people, aviation regulators around the world have tightened oversight of new airplanes
The FAA will also keep closer tabs on other aerospace manufacturers with more active, in-person oversight to supplement the agency's audits, Whitaker said
Boeing received orders for only four new planes in May and for the second straight month, none for its best-selling 737 Max, as fallout continues from the blowout of a side panel on a Max during a flight in January. The results released Tuesday compared unfavourably with Europe's Airbus, which reported orders for 27 new planes in May. Boeing also saw Aerolineas Argentinas cancel an order for a single Max jet, bringing its net sales for the month to three. The dismal results followed poor figures for April, when Boeing reported seven sales none of them for the Max. Boeing hopes that the slow pace of orders reflects a lull in sales before next month's Farnborough International Airshow, where aircraft deals are often announced. But the Federal Aviation Administration is capping Boeing's production of 737s after a door plug blew out from an Alaska Airlines Max, allegations by whistleblowers that Boeing has taken shortcuts to produce planes more quickly, and reports of falsified ...
Akasa Air is well on the path to profitability and will fly to more international destinations, including in South Asia and Southeast Asia, according to its Co-Founder Aditya Ghosh. In less than two years of taking to the skies, Akasa Air has a fleet of 24 planes and has more than 4,000 employees. In an interview to PTI in the national capital, Ghosh, who has donned multiple and diverse roles during his career, said that airlines are becoming more of a consumption story in India. "We will increasingly see it as consumer-focused businesses where the learnings which are there from ecommerce companies will help us address the needs and behaviour of consumers better in the transportation business," he said. Among other roles, he had served as IndiGo's President and Whole Time Director for ten years till 2018. When a customer-focused and employee-centric organisation is being built, it is also important to build a financially sustainable business, Ghosh said and emphasised that Akasa A
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in February barred Boeing from boosting 737 MAX production after a door panel blew out during a Jan 5 flight on a 737 MAX 9 operated by Alaska Airlines
The department's decision about what to do next will advance just one of the multiple legal threats Boeing now faces after a fuselage panel blew off a 737 Max mid-flight in January
The FAA's enhanced oversight of Boeing will continue in the coming months, with weekly meetings and quarterly exchanges between the heads of the company and the US regulator
Boeing is due to tell federal regulators Thursday how it plans to fix the safety and quality problems that have plagued its aircraft-manufacturing work in recent years. The Federal Aviation Administration required the company to produce a turnaround plan after one of its jetliners suffered a blowout of a fuselage panel during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. Nobody was hurt during the midair incident. Accident investigators determined that bolts that helped secure the panel to the frame of the Boeing 737 Max 9 were missing before the piece blew off. The mishap has further battered Boeing's reputation and led to multiple civil and criminal investigations. Whistleblowers have accused the company of taking shortcuts that endanger passengers, a claim that Boeing disputes. A panel convened by the FAA found shortcomings in the aircraft maker's safety culture. In late February, FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker gave Boeing 90 days to come up with a plan to improve quality and ease the
The Singapore Airlines (SIA) Flight SQ321 that was rocked by severe turbulence on Tuesday climbed and descended rapidly twice in 62 seconds, stunning the passengers with one dying of heart attack, as the aircraft flew over the Irrawaddy Delta region of Myanmar, it emerged on Saturday. One passenger -- 73-year-old Briton Geoffrey Kitchen -- died, and dozens were injured in the incident. It is the first SIA aviation accident involving a fatality since the SQ006 crash in Taiwan in October 2000. As the flight, which was heading to Singapore from London, experienced sudden severe turbulence over the Irrawaddy Basin during the breakfast service, the pilot declared a medical emergency and diverted the plane carrying 211 passengers and 18 crew members to Bangkok's Suvarnabhumi Airport, where the plane made an emergency landing at 3.45 pm (4.45 pm Singapore time). Granular flight data from flight tracking website Flightradar24 shows that the Boeing 777-300ER climbed and descended rapidly twi
Singapore Air "will continue to review our processes" to prioritise the safety of crew and passengers, the airline said
A spate of high-profile airline accidents this year have left a lasting impression on the public
Top U.S. enforcement officials are also weighing whether to charge the company for violating an agreement that shielded it from prosecution stemming from previous jet crashes in 2018 and 2019
In late February, FAA Administrator Mike Whitaker gave Boeing 90 days to develop a comprehensive plan to address 'systemic quality-control issues' and barred it from expanding 737 MAX production
A former Boeing manager who raised safety questions about the aircraft maker and was found dead after several days of depositions in South Carolina took his own life, police said on Friday after concluding their investigation. John Barnett, 62, of Louisiana, was found dead March 9, and police had said earlier that his injuries were self-inflicted. Barnett was a longtime Boeing employee and worked as a quality-control manager before he retired in 2017. In the years after that, he shared his concerns with journalists. Barnett said he saw discarded metal shavings near wiring for the flight controls that could have cut the wiring and caused a catastrophe. He also noted problems with up to a quarter of the oxygen systems on Boeing's 787 planes. Information and records reviewed during the investigation uncovered Mr Barnett's longstanding mental health challenges, which had intensified in connection with ongoing legal proceedings related to his whistleblower case, police said in a ...
A key Boeing supplier that makes the fuselages for its popular 737 Max airplanes is laying off about 450 workers because production has slowed down ever since a panel flew off one of those airplanes operated by Alaska Airlines in midair in January. A spokesman for Spirit AeroSystems confirmed the layoffs at its Wichita, Kansas, plant on Thursday that would trim its workforce of just over 13,000 people. Spirit is Boeing's most important supplier on the 737s because it makes fuselages and installs door plugs like the one that flew off the plane. But it's not clear whether Spirit or Boeing employees were the last ones to touch that panel. The recent slowdown in the delivery rate on commercial programs compels a reduction to our workforce in Wichita," Spirit spokesman Joe Buccino said. Boeing confirmed this spring that it is in talks to buy Spirit, which was once a part of the plane-maker before it was spun off. Buying Spirit back would reverse a longtime Boeing strategy of outsourcing
The US industrial giant faces significant scrutiny by the Justice Department after a string of safety failures
The Justice Department said it is still determining how to proceed, including whether and how to punish the company
The probe adds to legal headaches for Boeing, whose stock has lost about one third of its value in 2024
He was among the initial whistleblowers who raised concerns about the oversight of manufacturing defects in the 737 Max by Spirit's leadership