Open Letter to Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing CEO



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Dennis A. Muilenburg
President, President and
General manager
The Boeing Company
100 Riverside North
Chicago, IL 60606

Dear Mr. Muilenburg,

On April 4, 2019, you published a late-time statement that "we in Boeing regret the loss of life caused by the recent 737 MAX accidents." response to an incorrect angle of attack. "

Your acknowledgment of the issues with the 737 MAX has somewhat escaped any inclusion in your messages to shareholders, the capital markets and the Securities and Exchange Commission. It is now surprisingly clear that your excessive optimism of January 20, 2019 – after the crash of the Indonesian Lion Air – was misleading. No matter how much the public learns about your business problems day in and day out, there's still much less than what Boeing knows will come out day after day, not just the deadly design of the 737 MAX.

Your narrow-body passenger aircraft, the long series of 737s that began in the 1960s, has exceeded its peak. How long has Boeing been able to avoid investing in the production of a "white-sheet" aircraft and, to use the words of Bloomberg Businessweek "Pushing the Boundaries of an Aging Design?" Answer: As long as Boeing could get some and keep at least the training needed for pilots and other costs for the airlines.

To compete with the Airbus A320neo, Boeing has equipped the 737 MAX with larger engines, more inclined forwards and upwards than the previous 737. Thus began the trail of criminal negligence that will involve the company and its leaders. Large engines have changed the center of gravity and aerodynamics of the aircraft. Boeing's management was on a fast track and ignored the warnings of its own engineers, not to mention many other aerospace technicians outside the company.

The Maneuver Augmentation Characteristics (MCAS) patch with all its problems and errors is now a historic example of a serious Boeing management failure. However, you insist that the 737 MAX is always safe and that some modifications to the MCAS and other notices to pilots will make the aircraft airworthy. Aircraft must be stalled and not stalled. Trying to move the load on the drivers for a lot of failure modes beyond the predictability of the software is appalling. The Boeing 737 MAX must never be allowed to fly, it has an inherent aerodynamic design defect. Sell ​​your Boeing 737NG instead.

Regardless of your 737 Series safety history, Boeing does not suffer one, two or more avoidable accidents by adopting long-standing aviation knowledge and practices. You are about not to add an opinion to your already extraordinary record of criminal negligence decisions and inactions. Result – 346 innocent people lost their lives.

The behavior of Boeing's management must be considered in the context of Boeing's use of its capital gained. Did you use the $ 30 billion surplus from 2009 to 2017 to reinvest in research and development, in new narrow-body passenger aircraft? Or did you essentially burn this surplus with a $ 30 billion selfish share buyback during that period? Boeing is one of the companies that MarketWatch labeled "Five companies that spent a great deal on share buybacks while pension funding was lagging behind".

Surprisingly, your redemptions of $ 9.24 billion in 2017 accounted for 109% of annual profit. As you know, stock repurchases do not create jobs. They enhance the parameters of Boeing's executive compensation packages for key executives.

To aggravate your management recklessly, in December 2018, you asked the board of directors of your Rubberstamp to approve additional buybacks of $ 20 billion now paused.

Then, after the Indonesian crash, the second software bomb that robbed the pilots of control and shot down Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10, killing 156 passengers and its crew. At the time, your new software was supposed to address the avoidable risks associated with the famous 737 MAX.

Do not you see reversed priorities here? Do not you see how you should have invested to produce better planes? Instead, your management team was intoxicated with the prospect of higher inventory values ​​and higher profits by keeping your costs lower with the Boeing 737's "aging design." You misunderstood – a great time for your passengers and for your business.

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Boeing is in extra trouble, reflecting poor management. On March 22, 2019, the Washington Post Jim Bridenstine, NASA Administrator, said: "The agency is considering leaving out the huge rocket that Boeing is building, because of the delay in its schedule."

And now, the agency is about to announce a further significant delay in the large-scale spacecraft that Boeing is building to allow astronauts to travel to the International Space Station.

Then on April 21, 2019, the New York Times in a long story on the front page, based on "internal emails, corporate documents and federal archives, as well as interviews with more than a dozen current and former employees," has reported that your South Carolina plant, which produces the 787 Dreamliner, "has been battered by poor quality production and inadequate monitoring that has threatened to compromise safety. "

It's not like you're getting anything other than record amounts for these military contracts (the Air Force tanker) and for the government. You pay more than $ 23 million in 2018, or about $ 12,000 per hour!

In the midst of these accusations, whistleblowing proceedings, alleged reprisals on the part of management, the Time reports that your production pace "has accelerated" and that you're removing "a hundred quality checkpoints in North Charleston [South Carolina]." Why?

Large corporations are run as downward dictatorships, where employees determine their own wages and strip their shareholders. owners necessary governance powers. Your board of directors should disclose what you told them about the 737 MAX and when they knew it.

Already, corporate crime experts are pleading in your favor, as well as to other senior Boeing officials, after refusing to listen to the warnings of your conscientious engineers regarding the redesign of the 737 MAX, in order to face criminal prosecution. Note that BP pleaded guilty in the Deepwater Horizon oil spill to eleven counts of manslaughter in 2013.

Glass Lewis urges Lawrence Kellner, Chairman of Boeing's Audit Committee, to be removed from his position "for failing to foresee the risks to the safety of the 737 MAX aircraft" Financial Times, April 16, 2019.

Consider, moreover, the statement of two Harvard specialists – Leonard J. Marcus and Eric J. McNulty (authors of the forthcoming book, You are it: Crisis, change and how to lead when it matters most).

"Of course, if Boeing did not act in good faith by deploying the 737 Max and the Justice Department investigation reveals that Boeing took shortcuts or tried to avoid appropriate regulatory reviews of the changes made to the plane, Muilenburg and all other concerned officials should resign immediately. Too many families, even communities, depend on Boeing's viability. "

These prerequisites have already been disclosed and are obviously well founded. Your mismanagement is full of documentation. Management was criminally negligent, 346 passengers and crew members were lost. Your team and you should lose your compensation and should resign immediately.

Everyone involved in aviation security should have your public response.

Regards,
Ralph Nader

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