On Tuesday, Boeing’s president and chief executive Dave Calhoun said the firm was “acknowledging our mistake”.
The door “plug” which fell away from the aircraft weighed 27kg (60lb) and was used to fill an emergency exit that was built into the plane, but not required by Alaska Airlines.
The missing section of the plane was retrieved from the back garden of a Portland teacher, according to the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).
Speaking to Boeing staff, Mr Calhoun said: “We’re going to approach this number one acknowledging our mistake. We’re going to approach it with 100% and complete transparency every step of the way.”
Mr Calhoun reassured staff that Boeing would work with the NTSB to investigate the cause of the accident.
That was the Ethiopian Air and Lion Air accidents, right? I remember Boeing’s initial statements around that was something like “pilot error due to inadequate training and controls” and how…condescending it sounded. Of course it couldn’t be Boeing’s fault, the accidents happened in so-called developing countries with no regulations!
Then the news came out that Lion Air literally almost had the same error happen the day before the crash, and it was prevented by a 3rd pilot in the jump seat identifying the problem with the sensors and MCAS. Boeing sure shut up fast when the crash investigations corroborated that.
“Inadequate training” is ridiculous. As if they let pilots who don’t know what they’re doing fly their very expensive airplanes.