Transcripts For CSPAN3 Boeing CEO Others Testifies On 737 MAX - Part 1 20240713

Of the 737 max airplane at a hearing before the house transportation and infrastructure committee. Hes joined by boeing chief engineer john hamilton. This is just over two hours. Committee on transportation and infrastructure will come to order. I ask unanimous consent that the chair be authorized to declare recesses during todays hearing. Without objection, so ordered. I also consent that the chair and Ranking Member of the full committee be recognized for ten minutes each during the first round of questions without objection. So ordered. Before i begin i want to explain an administrative matter regarding some of the documents we may use in todays hearing and will be entered into the record. Ill be making two requests in reference to two document lists, a and b. We have been advised by the house generally counsel that the constitution provided authority for us to release these documents and the documents from boeing, boeings attorneys agreed to the release of these documents. I see nothing that is export sensitive in these documents. The faa stamped every document they sent us as export controlled. However, to prevent confusion with regards to documents with export control markings on them, i will be making unanimous consent requests regarding the release of these documents. Second, ill be names a unanimous consent request to enter the documents into the hearing record. This list includes the control documents on list b as well as additional documents. The Ranking Member staff is aware of all of these and has reviewed all of these documents that are on both lists. With that, i ask unanimous consent that the documents on list b, be disclosed mr. Chairman. Yes . I want to reserve my right to object at this point. The gentleman is recognized. Weve had two at least two, two that i can remember, hearings noting chinas infiltration of american industries, getting our and that includes rail, maritime, transit, you name it, and the and they would love to have the opportunity to get their hands on technology from the Aviation Industry as well. And it concerns me. We have talked about this and gone over this, making these documents these documents have all made available to everybody on the committee, making these documents available to the public are putting them out there in the Public Domain c i think is a real problem. And i think were cutting ourselves off at the legs when it comes to that technology. It concerns me. It concerns me in a big way. And i really want us to think about that moving forward. Having said that, i will withdraw my right to object and allow this to move forward because i do want answers. I think we can get the answers without these. I want to get the answers so ill remove that request. I thank the gentleman and i didnt take a backseat to anybody in the issues regarding china. I voted against most favored nation status and opposed them going into the wto. Ive raised concerns for decades about their theft of u. S. Technology and their unfair trade practices. So i certainly share the gentlemans concerns. I have reviewed these documents. I dont think theres anything in there that will be of any utility to the chinese. In any case, i recognize your concerns. I just have to finish reading this. With holding such information is contrary to the national interest. Without objection. So ordered. In addition i asked unanimous content to enter on the documents on list a into the hearing record. Without objection, so ordered. Lets proceed now to the hearing. I first want to recognize the families who are here today. Ive met twice with families. I dont know if ive met with all of you who are here today. And i want to convey my utmost condolences. One year and one day after the lion air crash. Very somber day. We shouldnt have had to be here. But we are. And were going to get to the bottom of this. And were going to fix it. And were going to see it never happens again. With that, i would thank the witnesses for being here. This fourth hearing the committee has held, first full Committee Committee hearing, i felt it best to do it in full committee. I know that boeing told us that they wanted to wait until the airplane was ungrounded, but i felt it was very important for them to testify before that happened. Were here today because 346 people, sons, daughters, fathers, mothers died on two max aircraft within a five month period. Something went drastically wrong. As you know, our committee has been acting in a robust investigation, but we have never undertaken an investigation of this magnitude. Its the second oldest committee in the United States congress. And we have received hundreds of thousands of pages of documents from boeing. They have been cooperative in providing those documents and agreeing that we could use those documents in the public hearing. And we have received tens of thousands of pages from the faa. We have conducted some hearings with faa employees. We have others we wish to interview. And we are have asked to interview boeing employees, but were told we have to be in line behind the justice department. Those are still forthcoming. There are a lot of Unanswered Questions that we need to get to the bottom of. We know that a novel system, new and novel system, called mcas, took these two planes into an uncontrollable attitude after it repeatedly triggered, having to do with faulty or missing censer. It was wired to one sensor and in may, then acting administrative sat there and i asked him was it a Safety System and he said yes. And then how could it have been approved to trigger with a single point of failure . He had no answer to that. How could the faa approve it . How could the manufacturer do that . He had no good answer. That will be where we are going to continue to pursue the roots of this problem. We do know that one point of boeing had planned to informed pilots about mcas. It was in the first version of the flight manual when it was a relatively benign system. But when it became a radical system, which could trigger failure, it came out. It will be discussed again here today, quoting from boeings chief test pilot and his instant messages. We do know that boeing engineers actually proposed placing an mcas enunciator in the cockpit, but that came out in later versions are in the actual production version. And then it wasnt until after lion air that boeing informed anyone and still at that point i think soft peddling mcas that it was in the plane. Ive talked to a lot of pissed off pilots. They said we were the backup system. How can we be backup if we dont know something is going to take over our plane. Theres quite a bit of discontent out in the Aviation Community about that. You know, we now know that boeing and the faa assumed pilots would appropriately react in four seconds. Four seconds. But boeing had information, which well get to a little later in this hearing, that some pilots might react in ten seconds or longer and if that happens the results would be catastrophic and result in the loss of the aircraft as happened twice. We now know from the very beginning the planes development, boeing was they had a phone call. The phone call was, hey, were going to buy airbus. They have better fuel economy and the pilots dont need restraining which is very expensive and disruptive. So boeing from day one had to meet that. Instead of a clean sheet airport, they got the 12th or 13th iteration of the 737 amended type engines. They had to develop a system to make it fly the same as others so it wouldnt have to go through Pilot Training or recertification. And that drove the whole process. We do know that boeing offered Southwest Airlines 1 million per plane rebate if the pilots had to be retrained. Imagine what the pressures were from the top on down, youre saying, what, no. No, no. Its costing us a million bucks a train. Maybe other contracts had the same provision. Slow things do. Then theres been a lack of candor all through this. Boeing learned that the aoa, angle of attack, disagree light, which was a standard featuring on all boeing 737s did not work on this plane unless someone bought the upgraded package. We were told that was an inadvertent software error. But that may be so. But boeing decided to delay the fix for three years until 2020. They didnt tell the faa. They didnt tell the customers and they didnt tell the pilots about this until after the lion air crash. Thats inexplicable. They say, well, its not necessary for safe operation of the max but keeping everybody in the dark and having that there it is, its there. Right in front of the pilot. Its not lighting up. Well, i cant light up. Even if there is disagreement. And it was included in the flight manual, unlike mcas. Wow. So you include something in the manual that doesnt work but something that is going to work and potentially cause c catastrophic issues was not in the manual. Boeing whistleblowers have contacted us regarding features force engineers wanted to get on the max but couldnt. We have from internal whistleblower a survey conducted in november 16 that 39 of boeing employees experienced undue pressure, 29 said they were concerned about consequences, consequences. You might lose your job, i guess, if they reported these incidents. We now know at least one case where boeing manager implored them to shut down the 737 max production line because of safety concerns several months before the first tragic lion air crash. Theres a lot we dont know. We dont know what would happen if a different path had been followed here. We dont know if these pilots had had simulator training. What would have happened. We dont know why boeing designed a play with a safety critical system side to a single point of failure inexcusable and unprecedented in the history of aviation production. We do know and we have seen that pressures from wall street, Market Forces have a way of making decisions in the worst way, jeopardizing employees on the factory lines and i hope thats not the story thats going to be written about this long admired company. We need today, we need answers, but we also know that we need reforms on how commercial aircraft are certified and how manufacturers, not just boeing are watched. Its not just about getting answers to your questions, but how to make the system safer and prevent future tragedies. With that, i yield time to the Ranking Member. Thank you, mr. Chairman, for holding this hearing. I do want to extend my condolences to the families and friends of the accident victims. I cant imagine how hard it is to sit and go through this process. Im going to divert from my statement for just a minute and associate myself with a couple of comments that the chairman made and i too as a pilot having a piece of equipment in an airplane that i dont know about is something that concerns me in a big way. And that comment about pilots saying were the backup system, it does concern me. But i want to point out, though, as well, when it comes to airbus, because it was mentioned too that airbus, you know, there were customers that wanted to look at airbus as opposed to the boeing product, but the pilot is the backup system. You cant shut it off. Very similar system in an airbus thats in a boeing max mcas, you cant shut it off. It overrides the pilot. Overrides the pilot. Mcas can be shut off and thats one of the things about when it comes to being a pilot, you want to be able to shut a system off that has failed and basketbabe able to fly the airplane. Its my hope that m mr. Mullenbergs testimony is going to help us understand the decisions made regarding the design and certification of the 737 max. Some of those decisions were reviewed by the boeing company. On behalf of the faa. And while they were able to act on behalf of the faa, they retain the responsibility for overseeing the compliance with all safety regulations. It still lies within the faa. And i note the chairman said, we have a lot of other people to hear from and hopefully i do want to hear from were hearing from the boeing leadership today. At the time of these decisions, but i get a complete picture, i would like to hear from the faa official that is were there at the time, you know, between 2012, 2017 when these decisions were being made. And i hope i can get a commitment, and im sure you dont have any problem with that i commit we will be hearing from faa. We have to hear from everybody. Ive said before, many times, the various investigations, they reveal problems. If these investigations reveal problems with certification, then i think congress should act to fix those specific and identifiable problems. Thats going to be the issue is identifying what those problems are. In the aftermath of these accidents, we cant address safety of the Aviation System by focusing on one single factor. Ive heard Safety Experts refer to the swiss cheese model of accident causation. If you visualize them as slices of cheese with hole that is represent the weaknesses, some of those weaknesses are due to conditions, others are due to active failures. But when an accident occurs, when all of those holes line up, when they line up, thats when you have a catastrophic failure. And we have to consider all of those layers, all of them, when it comes to the protection and safety and, you know we try to determine what weaknesses are out there and try to figure out what those weaknesses are. As an investigator, if one of those nine contributing factors did not happen, the crash would not have happened. Its the focus of a number of investigations. And earlier this year, boeing took responsibility for the mcas design weaknesses and working on a software fix which were waiting to hear about that. But other weaknesses, boeing, with the faas oversight, were going to address they include pilot displays, operation manuals, today were going to hear about the status of all of those of those efforts. But i want to hear about how these efforts line up with the recommendations of the joint authorities technical review, or the jtar. By individuals with vast aviation and Technical Expertise is due out is obviously due soon. It did highlight some deficiencies in the relationship between boeing and the faa and we have to address those and i know we will. The faa, their concern the faa concurred with the jtars report and is committed to working on these recommendations which is good. We have to have oversight to make sure that that happens, but lastly, i want to hear about recently shared documents relate today boeings chief technical pilot. Other investigations are moving forward as well. Last month the National Transportation safety board, they issued a recommendation report which largely focused on the assumptions that were made during the design and certification process related to human factors. Design and certification cannot be the sole focus of our efforts. And ive said this before, thats only one layer of that cheese model i talked about. Other weaknesses that have appeared to have played a role in these accidents have surfaced. Reports called into question evidence that has been submitted which related to the testing of the faulty angle of attack sensor. Theres been whistleblower statements and other reports raising significant concerns with lion air maintenance programs. A whistleblower complaint was filed alleged significant problems with that airlines training. The air carrier went into the records of the 737 max a day after the accident and unfortunately operational pressures and lack of robust Safety Culture can negatively impact aviation safety. Thats another layer of that model that i talked about. The ntsb has confirmed operational factors are going to be the focus of its accident investigations. Along with its own max certification review, the department of transportation, at the request of the committees leadership, is going to begin a review of the International Training standards and the impact of automation which is another thing that ive talked about as a potential problem. But i want to be Crystal Clear in reviewing these areas that this is not an effort to blame the pilots and i dont blame the pilots and i dont absolve boeing of its responsibility. But a september New York Times article described the changing nature of the Airline Industry and the impact its having on airmanship. It refers to a transformation of the entire business of flies in which airplanes came so automated that a cheap air travel boom was able to take root around the world and this boom in air travel resulted in a need for more and more pilots. I remember getting letters from airlines all over the world simple m simplely because i had atp on my license. I will continue to repeat this. When the technology fails, pilots have to be able to fly the plane, not just fly the commuter. None of this is a reflection on lion air or ethiopians pilots. They were fighting for their lives. Its reflection on the broader pressures thats presently today in the economy and its incumbent for the airline whose name is on the side of that airplane to ensure their pilots are properly trained and not rushed into the cockpits. Thats where some of this blame lies. In ethiopia in particular. The government owns the airline and they put pilots in there that something above their head. Its not the pilots fault. You have to look at who put them in that position to be responsible for hundreds of lives. So in line with that swiss cheese model and other layers of protection, such as pilot actions, maintenance, training programs, they must also be explored and all of those weaknesses have to be addressed and i still believe that the faa remains the Gold Standard in aviation safety and once the agency certifies the fixes to the max, i will volunteer to be the very first person right alongside the administer in the very first flight of the max 8. In regard to the two accidents, i think all of those issues need to be addressed but only after we have had the benefit of various investigate works that have yet to be completed. Jumping to conclusions before that work is done only risks more harm than good. The u. S. Safety record speaks for itself and i will stand up to anybody who tries to question that. The faas proven system has made air travel the safest mode of transportation in history. With that, i appreciate the opportunity and i look forward to todays hearing and yield back anything i have left. I thank the gentleman. I would now turn to the chairman of the subcommittee, mr. Larson. Thank you. I will be brief because i want to get to the reason why were here today. Thats for questions and direct answers from boeing. I released a video Opening Statement and you can find my full comments there. In summary, i want to say this, that the 346 lives lost in lion air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes, are constant reminders. What is at stake if we do not address these issues . Some of the victims family members are here, others are watching on a livestream and your presence and tireless advocacy are critical to what we are doing today. I want to thank you for that. You deserve answers and you rightfully expect congress to act. Following the recent release of recommendations, i want to say i see one undeniable conclusion, the way aircraft are certified are in need of repair. It makes it all the more tragic when there is one, it makes it worse when there are two. So as the committees Investigation Continues we should maintain safety as our guiding principle and use all the tools at our disposal to ensure the safety of the traveling public. With that, i yield back. Thank the gentleman and turn to the Ranking Member on the subcommittee of aviation from louisiana. Thank you, mr. Chairman. And thank you for holding this hearing today. Yesterday was the was one year since the lion air tragedy and i too want to join i think everyone sitting up here in offering our condolences to all of the family victims. Here we are in washington and everybody in this town, everybody nearly in this town, you sit up here and youre dealing with billions and trillions of dollars and all these crazy acronyms and processes and none of it often makes sense or fits the common sense test. And oftentimes you see people that just forget about objectives, why are we actually doing this . What is the purpose of this whole process that we go through . The regulations, the procedures . Why . And at the end its always about people. Thats what were here for. Were here for people, for fellow americans, fellow citizens. And it is amazing to me, just being here, how often that is forgotten. Im sorry to every one of you and your pictures are incredibly powerful. I used to be a rockclimbing instructor and we would go out there, we would have somebodys son or daughter, somebodys brother or sister and when youre out there rock climbing, look, theres no room for error. None. You lose somebody on a rock, theres no room for error. Air travel is the same thing. Theres no room for you cant, were going to pull over to the side of the road and see whats going on. I hear a noise coming out of the engine. Thats not an option. This process has got to stay focused on the risk that air travel poses. The fact that you cant pull over to the side of the road, that you have to have redundancies. Theres an all of lot going on right now with all of the different reports, investigations going on, and im going to run through those in a minute. Theres an awful lot going on. But, for example, if there truly was one aoa sensor that could potentially engage mcas, thats not the proper redundancies. When youre looking at the risk thats posed in this case, its unacceptable. Its unacceptable. A while back i had the chance to represent the state of louisiana in the deep water horizon disaster and spent a lot of time with the families there and spent many days in the court listening to testimony and i do believe and i think that the judge found that there was inappropriate culture on focusing on the wrong objectives and oftentimes people can be looking at stock prices or economics or how many people can we fit in here or what have you, im going to say it again, this is 100 about people. And ive heard people talk about this whole process and say that, well, this process was short circuited. Well, you know, you can look back and you can look at the 737 6, 7, 8, 9, 321, e 190, e 195, the c 919 and many versions of those aircraft and every single one of those actually was certified or approved in a shorter period of time than the max. So its not just about how long, its what we actually do during that process. What are we doing during the process to make sure that this is a safe aircraft, to make sure were not putting folks at undue risk. Ive heard a lot of people talk about a lot of different ideas and solutions and things that they want to do and as we move forward. And people posing solutions right now and certainly we need to extract every Lesson Learned that we can. But right now we have investigations in the indonesian authorities, ethiopian authorities, the office of special counsel that is working with the whistleblower complaint. We have the secretary of transportation that set up a special committee. Boeing is doing an internal investigation. We have so many different investigations that are going on. One thing that weve got to make sure that we do is focus on facts. One thing that ive seen in this body in the 4 1 2 years that ive been here is us responding emotionally to things and not responding to facts and well go and do something, it may make us feel good, but does not actually respond to the facts. And so as we move forward, and im sure i left out some of the investigations that are ongoing, as we move forward, we have got to make sure that we are acting on the facts and every single outcome, every single problem that we have identified, weve got to make sure that we truly base our solutions on those facts to where this doesnt happen again. Lastly, mr. Chairman, the families shared a number of concerns that i think are right on and i do want to ask that boeing get back to us on these and it was things like fully disclosing the mcas fix before the plane is allowed to fly, if its allowed to fly again, fully defining the role of the mcas system. Ill submit i would suggest you could submit those for the record or ask during the question period. I yield back. I thank the gentleman. With that, well turn to the witness, which for an Opening Statement. Chairman, Ranking Member, congressman, thank you, and to the whole committee, we appreciate the opportunity to be here today. Were going to do our best to answer all of your questions. Before we get started, i too would like to acknowledge the families that are here with us today and i wanted to tell you, im sorry. Ive had the opportunity to talk with some of you and hear your stories and we are deeply, deeply sorry. Well never forget. And i want you to know that and were committed to making the improvements that we need to make. Were committed. I had the chance to hear some of those stories and see the photos and listen to personal stories and it does get to a business thats about people. I think the congressman said it well, thats where our hearts will always be. And i know all of boeing, our 150,000 people feel the same way and they think about this every day. We will carry the memories can you speak a little closer into your microphone. Thank you. Pull it towards you. Is that better . Thank you, sorry. Please know that we carry the memories of these accidents with us and the loved ones, the memories of them, they will never be forgotten. And their memories will drive us every day to make our airplanes safer and to make this industry safer. And we are committed to doing that. I am grateful to have the opportunity to be here today to say this to the families personally and i want to let you know that we are dedicated to learning. We are learning. We still have more to learn. We have work to do to restore the Publics Trust and we will do Everything Possible to prevent accidents like this from ever happening again. Mr. Chairman, i know this committee has many questions about the max and well do our best to answer those today. While investigations are still under way. We know accidents involve the repeated activation of mcas which we already talked about. That system, i responded to erroneous systems from angle of attack signal. Weve enhanced mcas in three ways, it will compare information from both sensors instead of one, it will only activate a single time and third mcas will never provide more input that be the pilot can counter act. Pilots will have the ability to override mcas at any time. Weve brought the best of boeing to this effort. We spent over 100,000 engineering and test hours, weve conducted simulator sessions with 545 participants from from 99 customers. This has taken longer than expected but we are committed to getting it right. During this process, weve worked closely with the faa and other regulators. We provided them with documentation, had them fly the simulators and regulators around the world should scrutinize the max and only approve its return when they are completely satisfied with its safety. The public deserves nothing less. Mr. Chairman, today and every day over 5 Million People will board a boeing airplane and fly safely to their destination. Decades of cooperation and innovation by industry and regulators and the rigorous oversight of this committee have reduced accidents by more than 95 over the last 20 years. No number, other than zero accidents is ever acceptable. We can and must do better. Weve been challenged and changed by these accidents. Weve made mistakes and weve learned and we are still learning. And were improving. We established a Permanent Committee for our board, weve stood up a new Safety Organization and weve strengthened our Engineering Organization so all 50,000 engineers report up through boeings chief engineer. Weve pledged a hundred Million Dollars to this effort, weve hired experts in this area to ensure families can access these funds as quickly as possible. No amount of money can bring back who was lost, but we can at least help the families meet their financial needs. Mr. Chairman, i started at boeing more than 30 years ago as a summer intern in seattle. I was a junior at iowa state university, studying engineering, and i had grown up on a farm in iowa. My parents taught me the value of hard work and integrity. I was awe truck struck to work company who brought the jet h to the world. Im still inspired by what boeing does and by the remarkable men and women who are committed to continuing its legacy. But these heartbreaking accidents are now a part of that legacy. Its our duty to learn from them and we will. Recently theres been much criticism of boeing and our culture. We understand and deserve this scrutiny. But i know the people of boeing. There are more than 150,000 of the hardest working, most dedicated, honest people you will ever meet. And their commitment to safety, quality and integrity is unparalleled and it is resolute. We will stay true to those values because we know our work demands it. It demands the utmost excellence. Thank you for this opportunity to convey to the world that were committed to changing and making sure that accidents like these never happen again. Mr. Chairman, thank you for listening. And i look forward to your questions. I thank the gentleman. As i stated at the outset, with consultation with the minority, both myself and mr. Graves will open with ten minutes and move to other members for five minutes in the usual order. Its clear, obviously, from everything we know and the lion air report now that mcas was a major factor that contributed. But boeings position, at least prior to these crashes, was it was an Autonomous System and it operated in the background. That was the design approach, yes. So but the question is, how do we get to that and we have a slide, youll be able to see it right in front of you. Staff . Yes. This was a Concept Design for the flight deck in 2012 and as you can see in the bottom righthand corner, there was an mcas alert indicator, so at least at some point, some on the engineering and design staff felt it would be important to make the pilots aware of this system and to have an indicator light. So, is that do you agree that thats that was originally proposed . Congressman, understand that was part of an early trade study at that point and very common that early in the design stage we evaluate different flight deck systems. Thank you. So but obviously the final version did not have that . That light was there was no indication either in the manual or on the flight deck of the presence of mcas. Congressman, i think john can answer that question. Chairman, the mcas light as you pointed out, the intent of it was to single an mcas failure. Its important to note that in these accidents, the mcas system did not fail. It triggered. And it would not have lit up. But the functionality of the mcas light was actually the reason it was deleted was because the functionality was incorporated into the speed trim fail light which you can see just adjacent to that. The mcas is an extension of thank you for that. But when it was a benign system, it was in the manual, and then when it went to repeated 2 1 2 degrees, it came out of the manual, is that correct . I have seen very early versions of the manual that indicate that you had mcas in the manual, your test pilot asked faa to take it out and it came out. Congressman, if i could try to clarify, because youre asking a question that span into a couple of areas. If i could clarify. The mcas inclusion in the training manual, that was a process that was occurring in parallel to the extension of mcas to lowspeed operation. So the extension of mcas to lowspeed operation, that was done in flight tested from a period of around middle of 2016 we understand that and we understand some of the problems in the way it was tested and it wasnt tested with the aoa failure. Thats good for now. A key assumption was reaction time and the with the aoa failure, the mcas activates and its, you know, 2 1 2 degrees every ten seconds, pretty radical and boeing assumed it would take pilots four seconds to recognition and react, is that correct . As we do what we call hazard analysis four seconds was the that was the assumption, thats a longstanding industry assumption for systems like this. Lion air reports as it took pilots eight seconds to react. And then we have information provided to the committee by boeing, which will now be the second slide, and it says there a slow reaction time scenario, ten seconds, found the failure to be catastrophic. Do you think that was clearly was this document ever clearly communicated to the regulators that a tensecond delay, which doesnt seem like a lot of time to me, particularly when you look at the report and in the case of lion air when they didnt know the system existed, was the faa aware of this document . Chairman, i cant speak to this specific document. John may be able to. I think its important to note as part of the design process, we use a set of Industry Standard and practices on these timelines this is a but you that was shared with the i understand and i understand what the Industry Standard was. Concern. Ten seconds. You can say what pilots can do in less than ten seconds. Pilots arent at the top of their game every day. Particularly when they werent even aware of the seench situation. So, i mean, do you think in retrospect it was a mistake to not inform pilots of the existence of the mcas system. We made some mistakes on mcas. As weve gone back and taken a look at this moving from a single sensor feed. Providing important training information. Feedbacks is part of that and then revisiting these decades long Industry Standards, i think you see a the question would be why was it just originally wired through one sensor, which again single point of failure was then acting, in may, a safety critical system. Thats just not done. You know, as the ntsb said multiple alerts and indication can increase pilots work load, the alerts and indications did not trigger the pilots to immediately perform the run away stabilizer, you know, functions. Okay. Yeah, lets just mr. Hamilton, are you aware of any other aircraft out there that has a safety critical system that is depend upon a single point of failure . Chairman, a single point of failures are allowed in airplane design. Regulation 25. 1309 actually discusses that and talks about different categories. This one was deemed to be catastrophic. I know theres three categories. You didnt deem it to be catastroph catastrophic, although you said it was classified as major as i recall. Catastrophic is one category, and so when we test out systems we do look at their impact on the airplane when theres failures. We did look at ten seconds, but we also took into a simulator with pilots and the typical reaction time was i put up another document. Its right in front of you there. 12 17 2015. I dont know if youre aware of this, but this was raised by one of your engineers. Are we vulnerable to a single failure with the mcas, or is there some checking that occurs . Did you receive this communication and did you respond to that engineer . I didnt see this communication, but im aware of the communication recently as it surfaced. And talking with the engineer, i think it highlights that our engineers do raise questions in an open culture. But it also followed our thorough process. It was determined the single sensor from ao a wire or software fix or whatever . Why didnt you do it from day one . Why not have the redundancy. Mr. Chairman, weve asked ourselves that same question over and over. And if back then we know everything we know now we would have made a decision. The original concept from a safety standpoint was to extend the trim system on the previous generation of 737. Thats a system that had about 200 million safe flight hours on it. One of our safety principles is to take safe systems and then incrementally extend them. That was the safety concept behind the original decision. Weve my time move to this new design my time has expired. Mr. Graves is recognized. Hard to know where to start. I want to go back to the just kind of for clarification, that first slide of mcas. We can bring that up . The one that shows the flight deck . The mcas warning to me would be this is more of an editorial comment. You ever been in your car and the check engine comes on . Is it the oil temperature, oil pressure . I dont know what it is. Its a general check engine. The stuff thats more important to me is the stuff thats on the left. Mcas is a run away trim issue, which again i go back to training. You have memory items. Every pilot is i shouldnt say that in the United States, pilots are taught to have memory items. You instantly go through those when you have a failure. You start to do that checklist in your mind. Some of them are even goofy little rhymes or whatever to help you remember. And you go through each one of these processes. You know, in the case of ethiopian air, you know, they did i still come back to this, too. They never retarded the throttles. They set them for take off and never held them back. They went through the maximum certified speed of 737 max 8 right on through, right up to 500 miles per hour. Way beyond the maximum certified speed. Thats the reason they cant manually trim the airplane is because its going so fast. I used that analogy, too. Go down the road at 70 miles per hour, try opening the door. See what the pressures are against the door of your car. The more pressure there is, the faster youre going the more pressure there is and the more the harder it is to try to reverse those pressures. But you go through those memory items and you immediately start ticking down, and the trim is right in terms of, you know, what is the whats the average . Is it four seconds to react . Ten seconds to react . I guess thats one of the flaws we need to be thinking about. I guess were going to have to Start Building airplanes to the least common denominator. Thats a poor choice of words i guess you might say. The least common denominator in terms of internationally weve got to think about it, if were going to export weve got to think about International Training standards. Thats one of the things thats being looked at in how they train. Did they have those memory items . Could they tick them off . Most pilots will sit there and do it in the shower. I do it all the time in the shower. You know, just sit there and tick through my memory items, you know, engine failure, trim failure, whatever those might be. The faa and manufacturers are making assumptions about pilot traini training. The aftermath of these two accidents this question is for mr. Mullenburg. Do you believe these assumptions, particularly for aircraft are going to be operated outside the United States, do we need to revisit those assumptions . Congressman, we believe we need to take a look at those longstanding industry assumptions. As you well point out, those are used across manufacturers, not just boeing. These are things that have produced safe airplanes for decades. But we do believe that its appropriate to go take a hard look at those. We may need to make revisions. I think the jadr report has identified the same thing. We are committed to doing that and supporting that study. One of the areas for the future that were investing in as we think about pilot machine interface and how to do that most effectively. As you pointed out, a large generation of pilots that will be needed over the next 20 years, and we need to think thinking about designing our airplanes for that next generation. Hindsight is always 20 20. Knowing what you know now, would you have done things differently in terms of certification of the 737 max . Congressman, yes we would have. We have learned as i mentioned earlier we made mistakes. We discovered things we didnt get right. We own that. Were responsible for our airpor airplanes. Any accident with one of our airplanes is unacceptable. Thats our responsibility, we own it, were going to fix it. We know what needs to be done. And thats what were focused on going forward. Im going to make a comment here. This is as a result of this and the unfortunate part is we lost life. We lost loved ones, friends and life was lost as a result of these accidents. You know, you hope that its never going to happen again. The unfortunate reality is is one of these days it will happen again. Ive harped on this and this is something that concerns me. Ive talked about the difference in United Statespilpilot train and Pilot Training in other countries. In the United States, what im afraid of is were going down the same direction that were seeing in other countries when it comes to getting pilots to the point where they can fly. We can build the most perfect airplane thats never going to cause a problem or never going to get itself into a bad situation. Sooner or later, its going to get into a bad situation and its going to require a pilot to figure out whats wrong and then to come back and fly that airplane. Here in the United States i think were dumbing down and again, this is a criticism of our system. This is what im afraid were going to. I want to think about this as we move forward. I think it needs to be addressed. In the United States, used to we taught spin training and stall training and your basic piloting skills. Youre taught or you were taught basic stall characteristics and how to get out of a spin. Today you cant do that. The structure is not allowed to let a stall fully develop. At the first warning of a stall, they have to recover or they fail immediately. That means if the light comes on or if the buzzer goes off, they have to recover immediately. They cant let that stall develop. So were teaching them how to this is happening in other countries. Many countries do base their system off our system as well. Sooner or later youre going to get an airplane into a stall. But were not teaching anybody out to get out of that stall or never teaching them to get into it. Sooner or later it will be a problem. This concerns me. We have rewritten our ive got a problem with the faa allowing this. We have rewritten our instruction manuals to not allow this to happen. To not allow these items that will ultimately happen, we arent teaching pilots how to fix them, how to correct them, how to get out of them, how to save the people that are in the plane with them. Heaven forbid that should happen. Again, thats me harping, because it concerns me and it concerns me in a big way. The United States is behind other countries in ultimately going down that road. I think we have to get back to basic piloting theres nothing wrong with technology. I think technology is great. But the most important safety component in any airplane is a pilot that can fly the damn plane and not just fly the computer. I think ive got a minute left. Actually ill just yield back. I thank you the gentleman. I now recognize the okay. We do this in order of seniority and appearance. First with the mrs. Norton. Thank you very much. I cant say enough about the importance of this hearing. I appreciate you being here. Ranking member graves, i asked have you flown. I think you said in your testimony that you had flown on the 737 max since the fixes or corrections have been made. That is your testimony . Yes, ive flown on a couple of test flights as part of test flights. I understood those to be test flights. But the chairman mentioned when trying to get to the roots of the problem so it doesnt happen again with the faa so that airlines like boeing and so my questions really go to peninsulaalti penalties whether they made any difference. Basically compliance. Boeing has an obligation to be sure, but so does congress. The record i have i ask you, mr. Mullenburg, did boeing enter into a Settlement Agreement with the faa in an effort to resolve what were then multiple enforcement cases against boeing that were either pending or under investigation . That was in 2015. Im not familiar with the details of that i simply asked did you enter into a Settlement Agreement. Surely you know whether you entered into Settlement Agreements. I didnt ask you about the details. Congresswoman, thats correct we did enter a Settlement Agreement in 2015. Thank you. Is it also true that boeing had to immediately pay 12 million into the u. S. Treasury as a result . That is correct. Is it true that boeing faced up to 24 million in additional penalties through 2020 if certain conditions were not met . Yes, congresswoman in working with the faa, they were really looking for creating a longstanding agreement with us to build a Good Foundation on elevating im asking you about the 24 million. My time is limited. In additional penalties in 2020. Was that the agreement. Yes, there was a deferred penalty. Im just going through this quickly. The obligations improved management and accountability, intern auditing, supply management, more stringent and timeliness of regulatory submissions. Simplify specifications. I could go on. You sure you understood that that was the agreement, those were the agreement . In dining and developing and manufacturing the 737 max, boeing has run into issues, problems, characterize them as you will in meeting the opigations in most of these categories, would you agree, mr. Mullenburg . Congresswoman, weve identified many of those challenges through the Max Development program and some of those are in the areas youve had issues in meeting them . Some of this has resulted in the problems that bring us here today . Congresswoman, i cant give you any specific examples that went john, if youve i didnt ask some of these agreements were agreements that you would make over the course of the five years. Each year we provide a Progress Report to the faa on our progress on that. Im not saying youre not making progress, im saying the issues as you say are in black and white. Theres still opportunity in the time remaining to meet all obligations of the Settlement Agreement. Within the last decade, boeing has had two worldwide groundings of relatively new airplanes. 787 dream liner. 737 max. And encountered many compliance issues in the time since boeing made that 12 million settlement payment. Im assuming it was paid. Has the faa assessed any additional financial penalties on boeing to the 2015 agreement . Were not aware of any additional penalties. Time of the gentle lady has expired. It would be first mr. Crawford. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Mr. Mullenburg, are you aware of any aviation accident that can be attributed to a single factor . Congressman, no. I think the history of aviation shows that these accidents are very theyre very unfortunate, but in many cases they involve multiple factors. Mr. Hamilton, do you agree with that . Yes, all accidents are typically due to a number of contributing causes. The indonesia National Transportation Safety Committee recent recently found nine contributing factors for the crash. Other than the design of the aircraft, those factors include the miscalibration of censors, lack of flight and maintenance documentation and failure by the flight crew to appropriately respond to an emergency situation. To quote one of the indonesian flight investigators, the nine factors have to happen together. If one of these nine contributing factors did not happen, a crash would not have happened. Mr. Chairman, i have a copy of that report here and ask for unanimous consent to be included in the record. Without objection. Thank you, mr. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you, gentleman. On the other side would be representative johnson. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank our witnesses for being here. Id like to ask unanimous consent to put an Opening Statement in the record. Mr. Mullenburg, mr. Mark faulkners position as chief technical pilot on the 737 max was in place at the time of the accident. What did he report to you . Congresswoman, he was an engineer in our commercial airplanes division. Im not sure who he reported to directly, but he reported up to our engineering team. Actually, he was in the training department, so he worked through the training organization. Okay. So there was a chain of command in some way . Yes. Okay. In march of 2016, he asked the faa if it was okay to remove all references to the mcas and the flight crew Operations Manual and training materials. When he made this request, was he acting on his own outside the scope of what he was supposed to be doing as the chief technical pilot . Congresswoman, part of his responsibility included discussions on training with the faa, but that is a more than a single individual. Theres large team that does that Work Together with the faa and other stakeholders. And typically theyll discuss the contents of the training manual and make iterations on that manual overtume time to t optimize it for the pilots was there it was called to his attention, this request was made and what was the inside discussion . Congresswoman, i apologize i could not hear your question. The first question you responded to, which is related to the second one. That is, when he made the request to remove all references to the mcas and the flight crew Operations Manual and training materials, when he made that request, was he acting on his own . You said that it was a number of people. Im saying was he did he have any reprimand in any way or this request being made or was it a Group Request . Kwopart of that discussion o whether to include mcas in the training manual, it was an iterative process over several years. It included many people beyond mr. Forkner. Typically we want to include in the training manuals the items the pilots need to fly the airport. Ranking member graves said it earlier. We want to focus on the information thats needed to fly the airplane. Typically well make the decisions on what to include, depending on if they meet the criteria. Making it simple for you . No, its part of our responsibility is to provide the best training manuals we can. I know the discussion around mcas is included. Theres been discussion about whether to include it or not. Our focus has been on the information that would be needed to fly the aurirplane. Do you recall any discussion that was made around anybody objecting to this decision to remove this mcas from Pilot Training materials . Congresswoman, i cant point you to a specific document, but i know there were discussions, debates on whether to include mcas or not. Thats part of our healthy engineering culture. We bring up ideas, we debate. We encourage that open discussion. Thats how we ultimately optimize the content in the training manual. Have you reconsidered the removal of this material from the training manual . Operation manual . Have you had any discussion to reconsider removal of that material . There were discussion and debates amongst the team. That was happening during that multiyear timeframe as max was being developed. John can add to that. I agree. I would say since these accidents we understand that pilots do want more information. We are going to incorporate that in our Flight Training manual. Thank you. One of our time of the gentle lady has expired. Just a quick interjection. In reference to the single point of failure, i mean, there was turkish 981 where a dc 10 went down because the rear cargo door blew out. There was u. S. Air 427, the rudder problem that we had which was the subject of hearings and this committee. Ultimately determined the rudder hard overs. We had two of those single point of failure. Then we had the jackscrew on the alaska flight. You know, the so there have been a number. In this case, mcas was a major factor. It wasnt the only factor. With that, representative gibbs. Thank you, chairman. May condolences to the family, too, prayers, as you struggle through this difficult time. On the mcas, my understanding is on the angle of the censors theres actually two censors but only one was one sensor at a time. Because one thing im not a pilot. I fly, obviously, frequently. My friend here talks about how important it is you cant pull off the side of the rodad. I dont know what you guys are thinking. I know from my background in agriculture, a lot of times we have problem, you see a sensor failure that shuts the system down because the systems failing, an analogy. In an airplane, its a redundancy that would be key. I think weve learned a lesson there that were going to not just depend on one sensor, correct . Youve learned that . Thats one of the Lessons Learned here. We have learned and moving to a two sensor architecture. Im old school i guess. My kids, my grandkids might see it different. Every once in a while, your phone or whatever gets rebooted and so i have to agree with the chairman, but definitely the Ranking Member graves talks about make sure we have the pilots who can fly the plane. I know these systems have added safety overall. We have less issues and tragedies because of the systems. But weve got to make sure humans have to be able to override it. Thats concerning to me when i heard that airbus doesnt have that ability to override. Its something the faa ought to be looking out. That raised a question with me. Pilot training and testing, and i know we talked about at least two accidents that happened, lyonair, indonesia and ethiopia. My understanding is nothing against the pilots, i know they were trying to save their lives and everything. Thats now doubt. The training if it wasnt what it should have been, the reports ive read, if i was boeing, a Large Manufacturer of very sophisticated pieces of equipment, aircraft, what was boeing planning in the future, you sell these sophisticated aircraft around the world to make sure other than just relying on their government regulators i think i would make sure that people who are maintaining them, flying them have the training and the knowledge and ability and up you know, continuing training. So this is one area i think we can make sure we prevent things like this happening and not rely totally on the infrastructure itself, the asset itself, make sure weve got the human behind that. Im curious to hear your comments going forward, whats going to do when they make these sales, make sure youre confident that the people have maintained the aircraft and have that training and ability and what it will be moving forward congressman, i think you raise a very good point in that broader area of comprehensive global aviation safety. Its an area where well make additional investments going forward. An element is building a talent pipeline. The world will need one and a half new pilots and aviation technicians. We have a responsibility to build that talent pipeline. Were going to take a look at the pilot machine interface and designing that for the next generation as technology is rapidly involving. Were investing heavily in that area, future flight deck design. Were investing in simulation infrastructure around the world to provide additional training capacity working with airplane customers around the world. Those are a few examples of what were doing. Im curious in the two cases you have ethiopian liar air, did you have simulators over that training . How does that whats been the involvement with boeing . Are you aware of the training capacity they have . Im not specifically aware of what ethiopia has. If we could take that question well followup with the details there. We have a team thats locally engaged with both airlines. Well follow up. I appreciate that. Moving forward, we rely too much on computers and all that. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Well now turn to the chair of the subcommittee, mr. Larson. Thank you, mr. Chair. Mr. Mullenburg, as were looking forward prospectively, we need to do our job looking back retrospectively. You said today and yesterday at the Senate Hearing that we, boeing, have made mistake and got things wrong. Can you name three specific mistakes boeing made in this process . I would point out implementation of the angle of tack alert. We got that wrong up front. The implementation was a mistake. We fixed that going forward. Second . Secondly, weve learned about the mcas architecture, the changes weve already talked about. Clearly we have areas to include there. Third . I would say in the broader area of communication, documentation across all of the stakeholders and doing that, the efficient comprehensive man, weve identified improvements we need to make there. Can you identify individuals who made these mistakes within boeing . Congressman, across all three of those areas, these are large teams that Work Together across our company, our supply chain. 900 Supplier Companies that work in our 737 supply chain alone. The faa, airlines so in each of these areas, theyre broad integrated teams. There are no one individual that makes decisions within these, these generally are engineering teams that build consensus with all the stakeholders. Does that make this an organizational or cultural problem as opposed to an individual problem that led to these mistakes . I think its important from an accountability standpoint, my company and i are accountable. That starts with me. Our board took actions regarding my position. I was going to ask. How have you been held accountable in this . Congressman, to your question, our board has recently taken action on my position and i fully support that. That will allow me again to focus more on safety and our internal operations. These decisions are directed at safety. I have taken management actions, we know there are a number of reviews underway and as those are coo completmpleted if we nee action, we will. In some cases, theyre not individual actions but theyre organizational or structural actions. These are equally important. Weve recently announced changes to our safety review board structures to elevate them and make them more transparent. I now receive weekly data reports on our safety review boards. We stood up a new or board has set up a new aerospace Safety Committee just friday we announced the addition of admiral richardson who has a deep background in safety. Hell be a member of that committee. We want to realign our entire Engineering Organization. 50,000 engineers all report to our engineer and reports to me. This will create additional transparency, visibility, and independent all with a focus on safety. When i hear that and when i read the jabr reports and read the ntsb recommendations from september and read the accident investigation report, that there are changes that we need in how we certify aircraft and components in the aircrafting process. What we have now went too far and we dont have a handle we hold the faa accountable. The faa is supposed to hold the oems, equipment manufacturers accountable. Im not convinced based on reading these reports and looking at boeings own actions thats being done adequately. And id like to hear your view well, do you agree with me or not . Congressman, we believe there are improvements we can make to that process. Youre very familiar with the delegated authority process. That process we think is important to fundamental safety. It broadly contributes to the 95 improvement in safety weve seen over the last two decades. We need to make sure we have the balance right. We support the reviews that have been announced on that. I think. Ill finish here, mr. Chair. If the bookends on this are what well, it would be 10,000 more inspectors. Thats one bookend. The other bookend is what we have today. I think that we ought to be pulling out books somewhere between those two bookends. Right now weve gone too far. With that i yield back. I thank the gentleman. Representative davis. Thank you, mr. Chair. I want to add to what my colleague from the state of washington was asking about the certification process. You know, as he just asked, you know, theres one bookend of what the faa actually believes, you know, could be done with billions more dollars and inspectors. We have the current certification process. You know, i dont want to see a kneeje knee jerk reaction here. It breaks my heart to look over and see those picture. I know it does yours too. These are people who were affected by tragic accidents that were here to get answers from. We also want to make sure that we dont see anymore in rooms like this. Many of my constituents work at your facilities in st. Louis and in illinois, i know every one of those constituents that put on that boeing uniform and go to work every day, it breaks their heart when they see accidents and tragedies. They want to do the best job they can to put a safe plane in the air. What do you think the sweet spot is from those bookends mr. Larson was talking about . Congressman, i applaud the focus on safety and people. We have to remember what were doing here, providing safe travel for people around the globe. We have to get it right. I think the certification system that we have today is a solid system thats been built up over decades. We have seen very significant improvements in safe travel. As i mentioned about a 95 improvement. Thats a result of the current certification system. We need to maintain whats good in that current system. Theres clearly a lot of goodness. Weve identified a couple areas where we could look at refinements. One of the areas we talked about is standards, these longstanding Industry Standards around pilot machine interface and the assumptions behind that. I think were all eager to take a look at that as a potential area of reform. I think as john has well pointed out, there are some aged regulations on the books that could be updated to represent current technology. That would be beneficial. Thats good to hear. I certainly hope all of us here as policy makers can insure we dont have that knee jerk reaction. We all have the same goal. And theres nobody not many more in the country that fly as much as we do. So we understand the safety of the Aviation Industry. But its those instances where safety might have been compromised, which is why youre here. I appreciate boeing and you admitting mistakes and talking about the administrative decisions youre making as a team at boeing to insure those mistakes arent made in the future. You know, weve seen some disturbing whistleblower complaints from former boeing executives and workers about processes and the culture that may exist at certain facilities. What are you doing to address some of those to insure that the culture at boeing, all of their facilities is up to par with the facilities i know my constituents work at in st. Louis. Congressman, you raise a very good point. We want our employees to speak up. When they have concerns, issues, we want a culture where theyre willing to speak up. I encourage those reports. We want to hear what our employees concerns are. We conduct surveys to bring those up as well. We provide reporting channels where if employees want to bring up anonymous concerns they can. Those get immediate follow up action. And i think its important when you take a look at those whistleblower complaints, other points you brought up, this is part of our culture providing visibility on issues. Thats how we get better as a company. And i can also tell you as you know i know the 150,000 people at boeing. You know them from st. Louis. I know them as you do. These are honest, hardworking dedicated people that know the work they do directly affects lives. They want to do it right. They want to do it with excellence. We want a culture where people can bring up concerns and my kimt, the cultu commitment, the culture of our company is to be responsive to those inputs, to hear our employees, take action and do that consistent with our values. I hope the message you take from todays hearing was thank you for the good job many of your employees do on a daily basis. We also expect results. And we want to see those results in all of your facilities. My time is up, i yield back and i thank you both for being here. Representative of california, ms. Napolitano. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Our prayers are with the families on your tremendous loss. Mr. Mullenburg, my question regarding faas organization delegation, kbo that allows you company to oversee cert faa certification activities. The faas boeing Aviation Safety Oversight Office also oversees other airplanes. There are approximately 45 faa employees that work, but there are 1,500 boeing employees that work in the organization oda program. These boeing employees have a dual role of working for boeing and representing the governments interest through the faa. Mr. Mu do you believe having 45 faa employees overseeing all the critical safety decisions boeing makes every day regarding commercial aircraft is adequate, yes or no . Congresswoman, i cant give you what would be the exact number. We do respect the faas oversight authorities sure, she did ask for a yes or no answer. Do you believe thats an adequate number given the scope of their duties . Mr. Chairman, i cant answer that specifically. Thats the faas call. All i want to say is we fully support the faas oversight. Thank you, sir. Its part of what makes this system safe. Thank you. I think the tragedy of boeing 737 max doesnt just highlight culture problems at boeing regarding production and boeings commitment to safety. But i think also highlighted a failure by the faa to provide appropriate oversight of Critical Issues that ultimately led to the accidents. I think the current oversight structure is a critical, very critical issue and one that is going to need to be validated in the wake of these accidents. Thank you, mr. Chairman, i yield the remaining time to you. Thank you. I want to return to the market pressures, the fact that you had to design a plane that was more economical and couldnt require Pilot Training. And i would refer you to the first slide here is during an executive review, unfortunately, its an eethopian plane talking about the max advantage. There was relentless pressure in the next slide. Which is, you know, no Flight Simulator required. Weve had questions about the communications of your test pilot. We have the polling from your own employees about the pressures. Theres going to be a determination whether directly concealed, inadvertently concealed, providing in a fragmented manner. The full mcas in its radical form information to the regulators. Thats something we can also pursue with the regulators, what their understanding is. Let me ask a quick question. You know, i know you know why were here today. 246 people died on two planes in five months. Youre helping me to delve into what we need to fix because we need to change the law. Part of this process, really, is taking full capability for what went wrong patriots deafor the innocent people on two 737 max flights. My question is a simple one. I hope you can give me a direct response. Who bears principle responsibility at boeing for the cascading events that resulted in the crashes . I know that youve lost your board chair, youre still ceo, crow still serve on the board. I did happen to look at the compensation that year. You received after that crash a 15 million bonus. What are the consequences . Who is taking principle responsibility . Who is going to be held accountable . I know you fired one person. Mr. Chairman, my company and i are responsible. Responsible for our airplanes. We know there are things we need to improve. We own that. Were going to fix it and were responsible. I am responsible. Im also accountable. All right. I describe the actions that we took earlier. As additional reviews are completed, accident studies are completed, well take additional action. Im accountable. My company is accountable. The flying public deserves safe airplanes. Thats our business. Thank you. I want to pick up where the chairman off. Im a lawyer, im not a engineer. I dont understand the regulatory distinction between derivative type and a new type. Is the requirement of the new Flight Simulator a diskwoqualif to fit in under a derivative certificate . The 737 is a family of airplanes. One of the safest family of airplanes flying in the world today. And many pilots will fly a max, second flight of the day, back in the mgn, third flight of the day. One of the requirements the customers want is to be able to make it a seamless transition from an ng to a max. Let me go back then, because the New York Times reported in 2011 as competition grew with airbus that it was boeings position that we didnt want a derivative type. It was a brandnew clean sheet design, it was what customers wanted. So was the presumption that you were going to do a brandnew clean sheet design, a brandnew Type Certificate and no new Flight Simulator was going to be required . I was the chief engineer of the 737 at that time. We had actually had product studies as we normally do looking at reimaging since 2007. We had an organization that was looking at a new airplane. Like any good company, we were looking at both options. At the end of the day what customers wanted was to have an airplane they could seamlessly transition from their 737s into this future airplane. When we talk about who takes responsibility, im concerned we may have created a Regulatory Environment that makes it so difficult for you to get a new Type Certificate that you try to stuff all these changes that should never be stuffed in under a derivative certificate. Youre telling me its your customers who demand you get derivative certificate and we are not complicit in making it too hard to declare that new model . A derivative type cert is not any easier as a new type cert. We took over five years to do the derivative type cert which is consistent with what we do with a new type. Theyre very complimentary. If you look at the maxs certification, it was very comprehensive. When we go back to the igs report that quotes an faa official as saying the 737 max is not a simple derivative of its previous models, its a compilation. Boeing is doing everything it can to be exempt from the new certification rules and keep the aircraft the same type. That has nothing to do with the process, its the economic pressures boeing is under to meet customer demand of pilot similarity ma continuing model . The max was with engine technology, we determined we could get the same amount of noise reductions you pretty much could with a new airplane. And it was a desire from the customers. It informed the decisions we made, but it wasnt about how we approached certification. It was about Design Choices we made. Lets go back to the faa partnership, then. I appreciate what you said yesterday in your Senate Testimony about oda making american aviation and World Aviation safer. I believe that to be true and i very much worry that in every tragedy the tendency is to swing the pendulum back too far the other direction. When an faa official says the max is not a derivative, its a complex modification, it does incorporate new and novel futures, what role does boeing have in requiring the faa to go ahead and sign off on that derivative type, instead of saying no, we now looked at your engineering, this is not a derivative time. You must go back and begin this process again. Is oda implemented in faas decision of whether to certify a new type or not . I used to run the oda and i was actually leading the oda at the time. This is not an oda function at all. This is boeing as the applicants, the oem. We go discuss with the faa what the certification bases should be for the airport. Its ultimately the faas decision. They set the requirement, they set the cert basis and then we as a company, at the applicant, we have to follow that. Its not an oda function at all. I hope well bring the faa officials in so we can ask that question. That is the point of failure, if theres a point of failure in this regulatory process. I yield back. I thank you gentleman. Mr. Lipinksi is next. This is not a court, this is not a criminal hearing, but 346 people died in two crashes of boeing 737 max planes. It should not have been certified to fly by the faa. I said earlier this year, something went wrong in the certification process of this plane. The faa certification process itself is at fault . Boeings at fault in their role in a process or both . After i was upgraded by some in the industry for questioning the process. This committee has a responsibility to get to the bottom of what went wrong in a certification process for the 737 max. So we can make changes to that process and assure the public, especially those in this audience and everyone who lost loved ones to ensure them theyll not be flying in unsafe planes again. Im not sure what accountability means if it means you received a 15 million bonus after these planes crashed. Im not sure whos been held accountable here for this. Two planes crashed. Even after the first plane crash, i dont understand how you have im an engineer, but im asking a lot of questions back here of people who are more expert than me. I dont understand how you have a single point of failure. It was raised as the chairman mentioned. Tlds another case, there was an internal ethics complaint that alleged an engineer said that recommended a synthetic air speed system be put in which is in the 737 and was rebuffed because of cost and potential Pilot Training impact. Mistakes are made a lot of reasons mistakes are made. The bigger problem is mistakes were made for financial reasonsereasons. Theres a lot of things that seem to point to that. That is what is so concerning. How did boeing allow it to happen . How did the certification process allow it to happen . In order to get a new Type Certificate, it takes generally a longer amount of time. I think most people will agree it takes a longer amount of time. It also risks having most likely youre going to have to have require Pilot Training. All these point back to ways of saving money. That is a big problem. How now, i want to ask mcas was not evaluated this was something i was listening to Senate Testimony yesterday, mr. Mullenburg. You didnt seem to agree with this. I want to get what you say here, jabr team found that mcas was not evaluated as a complete function in the certification documents that were submitted to the faa. Is that true . The mcas system was certified with the faa. Was it evaluated complete integrated function or was it step by step well, ever having faa look at it as a complete and integrated system . Thats whats the important piece of this. I think what the report points out this is an area where we sport further looks as well, when we think about what we call a cross System Integration in how we do certification of that. So, for example, multiple failure mode analysis, high pilot workload conditions. We do think thats an area where we want to look more deeply. The mcas system and the max were certified to our current standards for how we do those analysis. As the it was a completely very different think thats very, ve important, thats something that faa should have required. And i think it should have been provided. But in my last few seconds here, i want to ask, is the 737 max reenters service will boeing require similar training on mcas for all pilots . Those decisions are the purview of the regulatory authorities around the world and we will respect their decisions. Will boeing have to give money back to any of the airlines if thats the case . Congressman, money doesnt factor into this decision. Its about safety. So we if its in the contract, thats the question. My time is up. Thank you, gentlemen. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I thank all my colleagues for all these questions today. In my previous life, i was a organized crime prosecutor and routinely had to sit with victims and victims families more often. And the pain i see on your faces is exactly the pain i saw on those victims faces, so i just want to recognize that and recognize that i hope you understand we are taking this very, very seriously. And i understand, m mr. Muilenburg, last night you had an opportunity to meet with the victims families. Id like to i know it always had a huge impact on me and how i carried out my cases and it motivated me to do better and get to the bottom of the problem. So i want to hear what it was like for you and what was discussed. Congressman, i want to respect the privacy of the families. But i can perhaps if you allow me just broadly to describe our discussion, we wanted to listen. And each of the families told us the stories about the lives that were lost. And those were heartbreaking. Ill never forget that. So we talked about their stories. We listened. And we further into the conversation talked about safety, talked about changes, talked about what my company has learned, what ive learned. We talked about our commitment to never letting this happen again, to preventing any future accidents like this. That was one thing i wanted to convey to the families. But these stories, theyre always going to be with us. And i wish we could change that. And all we can do is we have to remember these people. It brought me back to remembering that lives literally at the depend on what we do at the boeing company. Thats why i came to this company as a farm kid from iowa. Thats what i wanted to work on. And these stories brought that all back. So were never going to forget that and the commitments we shared with the families and worrying with their communities going forward. Thats very important to us and were going to follow up. I can tell you, i never forgot any of those conversations with the victims of murder victims and their families. I can remember it like it was yesterday. And i hope you remember that and it motivates you and your Company Going forward to do better than youve done. Mr. Hamilton, from an engineering standpoint, i want to sketch gears. My colleagues have done a fantastic job asking about this issue. Im concerned with other things. And with my work on Homeland Security and my chairmanship of the subcommittee on cyber community, very concerned with supply chain. Weve made a lot of noise about what new york city was doing with their subway systems and weve made noise with metro here as well. Im concerned to know what youre doing to ensure that the supply chain is good and is sound and youre not getting it from bad actors and also what youre doing to ensure that the ever spreading and met aftcizing cybersecurity problem doesnt affect the airlines themselves. Certainly. We do have a Global Supply chain, and we carefully do audits of our suppliers to determine, first of all, should we get something from that supplier or not. And then we have robust followup processes both looking at their quality controls, their producibility, and oversight of our supply chain. This is one of the things that the faa has to strengthen and we are doing that. Weve taken some actions on that as well. And every day we get reports in on how the suppliers are doing and whether or not we need to invest and put more actions to improve their operations. You want to talk cybersecurity. In addition to that, weve got about 12,000 companies in our supply chain here in the u. S. , mostly midand small sized businesses. So in many cases with, we assist them with their infrastructure as well. Thats a very important infrastructure to us across our boeing enterprise and my c. I. O. Who reports directly to me is responsible for that. We also have a continue us effort on the cybersecurity of not only our systems but our products. So cyber hardening our airplanes for the future, ensuring that nobody can gain access to those airplanes is a very important safety design prison approximate with that i recognize representative cohen. Thank you, mr. Chair. Mr. Hamilton on the 30th of march 2016, boeing asked the faa if it was okay to remoofb all references to mcas. That was based on boeings representation that mcas only operates way outside of the normal operating envelope. Is that not true . I believe that is true. That i cant fair vie the date but i believe what youre saying is true. Let me suggest this to you or ask you. On march the 30th, boeings chief mark folknal emailed, are you okay with us removing all references to mcas from the operating manual and the training as we discussed as its completely transparent to the flight crew and operates way outside the normal operating envelope, that being the commercial Airline Passenger might reasonably experience. Is that correct . As mr. Muilenburg has discussed, its a process that we go back and forth with the faa on what needs to be in the tlaning manual and what doesnt. Collectively the faa and boeing reached an agreement that the prescription of the mcas did not need to be in. Mr. Folkner requested that . Yes and his role would be the prime interface with the faa on that. So he said it was way outside talking about conditions where they were outside what a normal passenger would experience, right . That mr. Faulkner said it was outside the normal procedures . Normally wouldnt have that occur on a commercial airline . Referring to the mcas envelope being outside . Yeah. Mcas should have been trance parent to the pilots and assist them only as they approached what we refer to as high attitude type conditions. All right. Mcas didnt activate outside the normal operating envelope on lion air. It did within the normal operations on that flight, is that correct . Yes, mcas reacted to a faulty sensor input and operated as it was designed. So captain faulkner repeated this as late as january of 2017 after boeing had changed mcas to operate at lower speeds and just a few months after the faa certified and in a recent email he reminded the faa, delete mcas. Recall we werent going to cover it in the flight operating manual since its way outside the operating envelope. Get it out of the flight manual. In hindsight would you agree he did not understand, two downplayed, or at worst, three concealed the fact that under a scenario known to boeing the failure it could activate within the normal operating envelope . I was not part of those conversations. I think that was part of the leading up to the standardization Board Meeting and understanding what needed to be presented. You might not have been an part of that, but youre an expert, a Vice President of boeing . Thats correct. Would you not agree that he did not understand, downplayed it or concealed a fact that under a scenneario known to boeing failed to act about what would go wrong . Congressman. Mr. Hamilton would you answer my question . Absolutely. Congressman, i dont know what was going through captain faulkners mind. I dont want to speculate on that. Mr. Muilenburg, do you want to congressman, the only point i was adding was that the mcas is originally designed, the idea is for it to operate outside the northerlial envelope and then the extension to the low Speed Envelope which i think youre referring to again, that was something that was tested and certified with the faa from roughly mid2016 to early 2017. Mr. Muilenburg, you said you are accountable. Are you taking a cut in pay . Are you working foe free . These peoples relatives are not coming bab. Theyre gone. Your salary is still on. Is anybody taking a cut or working for free like the yapnese would do . Congressman, its not about the money for me. Thats not what i came. Are you giving up any money . Congressman, my board will conduct a come premense i was review. Youre not giving up any compensation at all . Youre continuing to work and make 30 million a year after this horrific two accidents that caused all these peoples relatives to go, disappear, die, youre not taking a cut in pay at all . Congressman, again, our board will make those determine naikss. Youre not accountable . Youre saying the board is . I am accountable, sir. Gentlemans time has expired. With that we turn to representative graves. Mr. Muilenburg, did you fly in a 737 max prior to these disasters . Congressman, i dont recall flying on a max prior to, no. Mr. Hamtilton . Yes. Do you have any idea how many times . I dont recall the exact number. Once, ten times, ballpark . I could count on one hand. I flew on one i dont know how many times but i know at least once. Before. My point is that there are all sorts of things that have come out including the Text Messages and other things that some folks have said this is a smoking gun. Im going to assume that you all wouldnt have ridden on an airplane if you believed that something is wrong. Is that a safe assumption . Yes. So heres where i want to transition. So i talked earlier about all the reports that i did from memory. I think the only one i left out was the department of transportations inspector generals report. Weve got outcomes of a number including ntsb, indonesian, weve got the boeing board and others that have come out. How do we know that this new process is actually going to have the integrity to where you dont just feel its right, faa doesnt just feel its right, that it actually is right . Does that question make sense . When you say new process, congressman my point is before you flew, i flew, we all believed that it was right. Now were potentially going to unground this craft at m point. How do we know this new process is actually going to work and yield the right outcome . , you kno i would say number Software Changes were making are going to prevent a pilot from ever being in this position again. But the faa is doing a very robust, thoreough review and thats partly why its taking so long. I feel covenanfident that the f will clearly say that this airplane is safe. Youve got preliminary outcomes from ntsb, indonesian and from boeing board and others. Based on what youve seen so far, are there any of these expert recommendations that you disagree with . I think the ntsb recommendations, the jada recommendations, theyre all, even the indonesian recommendations, i think were still reviewing all of them, but i would say after my initial look at them i think there are some very good recommendations and were looking forward to working with the faa and the industry to address those, yes. Are you implementing those recommendations now on your efforts on the triple 7 x as it goes through certification . I would say absolutely based on the Lessons Learned coming out of the max, we are absolutely applying those to the triple 79. Some of the recommendations we need to work with the faa on how they want to respond to some of these. I would appreciate if you can come back to the committee after looking through some of the recommend daigs of ntsb and others and advise us of any recommend daigs that you do not concur with. Secondly, if you could provide the committee and follow up with just helping us to better understand what changes boeing is making. And look, understand youre part of the system, the airline is playing an Important Role. The faa plays an Important Role and others. But what changes youre making to where you felt it was right okay before, and making sure that there are changes. I was going through five recommendations from some of the families. Puck libly discloe the mcas fix dwb carrily define the utility of mcas, address the concern of the culture within boeing that might have been prioritizing the wrong things, ensuring that there were not efforts to conceal the mcas and its role, which i think goes back to defining, and also ensuring that the entire plane as viewed as an integrated system as opposed to components, individually, that may not recognize sort of their role in the larger system. Congressman, well follow up on all those. Thank you very much. Yield back. Were going to recognize yeah. One more member, and then the panel has requested a break which i think is quite reasonable, of 15 minutes. So we will, ill recognize respective series and then we will have a 15minute break and return. Chairman, thank you for holding this meeting. Its very important. Mr. Muilenburg, in the spring and summer of 2018, did the former general manager of the 737 program ever raise safety concerns with you about production pressure on boeings employees who were involved in the final assembly of the 737 max of Boeings Renton washington facility . Yes or no . Im aware of some concerns that were raised in that time period. Yes. Okay. Id like to read from an email that was sent to the general manager of the 737 program in june 2018, four months before the lion crash and two months before the plane was delivered to lion air. The email comes from a senior manager on the final Assembly Team for the 737 max. It reads like this, i have some safety concerns that i need to share with you as the leader of the 737 program, he wrote, today we have 38 unfinished air plaerchz located outside the factory. The following concerns are based on my own observations in 30 years, 30 years, of aviation safety experience. My first concern is that our work force is exhausted. Employees are fatigued from having to work at a very high pace for an extended period of time. Fatigued employees make mistakes. My second concern is schedule pressure in creating is creating a culture where employees are either deliberately or unconsciously circumventing established processes. These processes break downs come in a variety of forms adversely impacting quality. Frankly right now all my internal warnings, bells, are going off, and for the first time in my life i am sorry to say that i am hesitant about putting my family on a boeing airplane. The employee was so concerned that he recommended shutting down the production. And he states, i dont make this recommendation lightly. He wrote, i know this would take a lot of planning, but the alternative of rushing to build is far riskier. Nothing we do is so important that its worth hurting someone. Mr. Muilenburg, i know this employee also wrote to you personally in december 2018 after the lion air crash. As i spoke with boeings assistant general several times after that, my question is, what have you done to ensure the safety issues boeing employees raise properly addressed . You went through before a whole litany you do with employees. It seems that this one must have escaped somewhere . Congressman im familiar with that last communication that you referenced where the employee sent or i believe he was a previous employee, retired employee. Hes retired. He went on to retire after 30 years. I recall his email. And we did have several followup section sessions with him. I told him i appreciated the fact that he brought up those issues and concerns. We do know that our team who at that point was running a production line that was operating at 52 737s a month, it was a highrate line at that point, as we had been rumping up production from 42 to what did you do about it . We took a number of actions on taking a look at each of the Work Locations within the factory, each of the production stops. We implemented some additional quality checkpoints in the process. We also just took a look at his concerns. Because he was not actually in the factory at that point, but he raised some good concerns. So we went back and took a look at his concerns, and in some cases we identified areas where we thought his issues had already been addressed, and we provided that information back to him. But this is part of our continue us process in our factories. Its very, very important that we set up a culture where again safety is first in the factories and that comes with quality. As you well pointed out. And safe work is also work thats done in position. And thats one of the big focus areas for us. What happens in highrate factories like ours, if in the production factory you have work that gets behind and out of position, thats when injuries can happen. So our objective is to make sure work can happen in condition. Thats safer. Thats an area weve been very, very focused in our safety he efforts and will continue to be. We take those inputs seriously. We evaluated and responded and are continuing to take action. My time is up. I thank you. Did you reduce the race of production at that point in time given his concerns from 52 . Congressman were currently running the 737 line i mean at that time, did you reduce it . Sir, we did not change the production rate. I think its very important that when you change production rate in a line like ours any up or down i understand theres a whole supply chain. If you want your 15 minutes were going to have to break now. We will recess the committee for 15 minutes. Saturday marks the 30th anniversary of the fall of the berlin wall, a symbol of the divide between the east and west during the cold war. American history tv and cspans journal are live from the museum in washington, d. C. Beginning at 7 00 eastern with angela stent head of center for studies. Hope harrison, steve vogel who covered the fall of the wall and author of betrayal in berlin, and kerry litofferson in the museum talks about the cold war exhibit. Well be taking your phone calls, emails and tweets throughout the program. Watch the 30th anniversary of the fall on cspan3 and washington journal. Sunday night on book tv at 9 00 even, former speaker of the house with his book, trump versus china. I dont think the chinese have any great planning, certainly in the next 20 or 25 years, to try to take us on militarily in a traditional sense. But i do think theyre trying to build the kind of cyber cape abilities. And i think huawei is an extraordinary asset for them. I think theyre trying to build a capability in space, both of which have global implications. And then at 10 00 eastern, New York University journalism author talks about her new book diversity inc. Im not optimistic about white americas ability to see past the fiction of african americans, of latin people, the centuriesold demeaning images of people and how that has as much to do with the lack of diversity. Watch book tv every weekend on cspan2. Defense and Veterans Affairs officials mark veterans day with a ceremony at Arlington National ceremony. Watch live coverage monday morning. Online at cspan. Org or listen live on the free radio app. Watch the cspan Networks Live next week as the House Intelligence Committee holds the first public impeachment hearings. The Committee Led by chairman adam schiff will hear from three state Department Officials starting at 10 00 a. M. , top lip loment William Taylor and george kent will testify. And then on friday at 11 00 a. M. Eastern on cspan 2, marie yaufbon vetch will appear before the committee. Follow live on the cspan networks, online at cspan. Org or listen live with the free radio app. At cspan. Org, were making it easier for you to watch cspans coverage of the impeachment inquiry and the administrations response. If you miss any of our live coverage go to our impeachment page at cspan. Org impeachment for video on demand. Weved aed a tally showing where each House Democrat stands on the ism impeachment inquiry. Follow on our web page at cspan. Org impeachment. Its your past and easy way to watch unfiltered coverage anytime. The Senate Banking committee examins the challenges faced by Cannabis Store owners. They discuss the need for federal action and clear regulations as more states legalize marijuana. From earlier this summer, this is an hour and 40 minutes. The committee will now come to order. Before we get started, we have two witness panels this morning, senator brown and i will give our opening remarks first and then we will hear from Senators Gardner and merkley. Once we have finished we will proceed with the second panel of