At Wednesday's Senate Commerce Committee hearing, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) questioned Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg.
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NewsTranscript
00:00Let me start with just a simple question, which is can travelers trust Boeing?
00:06346 people died in the two 737 MAX 8 crashes.
00:11We are extremely fortunate that no one died in the door plug incident.
00:17Since 2018, Boeing's mistakes have caused many people to question whether Boeing is
00:22still capable of making safe aircraft.
00:26Mr. Orkberg, what can you say here to the millions who will board a Boeing plane this
00:31year, to the millions who will put their children on the plane?
00:35I and I suspect every member of this panel fly Boeing planes every single week.
00:42What can you say to the flying public as to why they should trust that a Boeing plane
00:47is safe?
00:49Senator, the Boeing aircraft, the 737 MAX airplanes take off and land every two seconds
00:59of the day, safely take off and land every two seconds of the day.
01:02I'm not denying the horrible incidents that you've outlined.
01:07We need to take immediate action and we are taking action to make sure those accidents
01:14never, never happen again.
01:16My family flies on those aircraft as well.
01:20It's critically important that we rebuild trust.
01:23The only way we're going to do that is by building high quality airplanes, having the
01:30metrics out of our quality system that show that we're making improvements.
01:35I want everybody to know the entire Boeing team is absolutely committed to building the
01:40highest quality aircraft in the world.
01:43Air traffic is the safest mode of transportation and we need to continue that and continue
01:48to find and learn if there's incidences so that these don't turn into tragic accidents
01:54in the future.
01:57As I mentioned, the NTSB's investigation of the Alaska Airlines door plug incident revealed
02:02that it was caused by manufacturing errors at Boeing.
02:07Mr. Ortberg, you joined Boeing more than seven months after the door plug incident.
02:13What went wrong with the door plug?
02:16And what specifically has Boeing done to correct the safety lapse?
02:21Senator, first of all, it's unacceptable that an aircraft left our factory without that
02:27door plug properly installed.
02:29And let me just make that perfectly clear, that can never, never happen again.
02:35One of the things there's currently in the NTSB investigation, as you're aware on that,
02:40we're not waiting for the NTSB to finish their investigation.
02:44We've taken immediate action.
02:45One of the first actions was to work with our airline customers and the FAA to go inspect
02:51all the aircraft out in the field.
02:52And we've done that and ensured that there are no other instances of a door plug not
02:58being installed properly in the field.
03:00The second thing that we did is we found that the proper paperwork was not completed when
03:06the door plug was removed in our factory.
03:10We've gone through extensive retraining of our workforce to make sure they understand
03:16that that violated our policy and that they have to complete the proper paperwork.
03:22We've eliminated or reduced the number of people who can actually do the modifications
03:28for the door plug so that in the future we have fewer people that are allowed to even
03:35touch and remove the door plugs.
03:38In addition, one of the contributing factors is we identified that the door plug needed
03:44to be removed in order to do some repairs on the aircraft that were a result of defects
03:51in the fuselage.
03:53Those defects come from our fuselage supplier from Spirit Aerosystems in Wichita.
04:00The airplane moved down our factory line too far after we identified those defects,
04:06which contributed to the risk of the door plug not being properly installed.
04:14So we have made changes to our process, pushed all those defects back up to Spirit Aerosystems
04:22so we're not bringing those into our factories.
04:25And so far, sir, we've seen a 56% reduction in defects coming out of Spirit, so that's
04:31going to help us significantly.
04:33We've also implemented a move-ready safety process so the airplane cannot move down the
04:38production floor if equipment is not installed or rework has not been accomplished.
04:47If the aircraft has equipment not installed, we go through a safety risk assessment and
04:54look at the risk of moving the aircraft, and we've done that 800 times, and I can tell
04:59you of the 800 times, 200 times we've not moved the aircraft.
05:03We've held the aircraft because moving it would incur risk to the production system.
05:10And we've also seen a 50% reduction in work that has traveled down the factory floor.
05:16We continue to work in improving those numbers.
05:20Those are one of the KPI indicators that we're using with the FAA.
05:24So we've made drastic changes to our internal process to ensure that this will never happen
05:29again.
05:30Okay.
05:31Final question.
05:32I'm sure you're aware that whistleblowers and others, including Ethiopian authorities,
05:38have suggested manufacturing errors, particularly with electrical wiring, contributed to the
05:43MAX crashes.
05:45Mr. Ortberg, is this an issue you've discussed with Boeing employees since joining the company?
05:49And if so, what is your opinion on whether there were also manufacturing defects that
05:55may have led to the sensor defect?
05:59Senator Cruz, obviously that happened before I joined the Boeing company.
06:03My understanding was that the cause of the crash was the MCAS design, and those design
06:10change the MCAS has been redesigned and design changes have been incorporated in all aircraft.
06:17I'm not aware of any electrical wiring issues associated with that, but I'd be glad to look
06:22into that and get back with you.
06:24So just to be clear, your testimony is you have not had conversations with Boeing employees
06:29about whether there were electrical issues that also contributed to that crash?
06:33Not specifically, no.
06:34Okay.
06:36Ranking member Cantwell.