Boeing said on Wednesday that it was shaking up the leadership in its commercial airplanes unit after a harrowing episode last month during which a piece fell off a 737 Max 9 jet in flight.
Ed Clark, the head of Boeing’s 737 Max program, which includes the Max 9, is leaving immediately, Stan Deal, the CEO of the commercial airplanes unit, said in a memo to employees. Boeing, which also announced other leadership changes, has been under pressure from regulators, airlines and members of Congress to prove that it is committed to making safe planes.
Boeing announced in recent weeks that it was overhauling its quality control process, including increased inspections at the factory in Renton, Washington, where Clark oversaw Max production. The leadership changes are the company’s most prominent attempt to show it is holding itself accountable for the Jan. 5 episode that left a fuselage hole in an Alaska Airlines plane.
Clark took over the Max program in 2021 as the company was accelerating production of the plane, which had been banned from flight worldwide for 20 months after two fatal crashes in which 346 people were killed. Those crashes cost Boeing billions of dollars, deeply damaged its image and attracted far more scrutiny of the company from regulators worldwide.
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This article originally appeared in The New York Times.
