Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg on Tuesday expressed confidence that the aircraft manufacturer’s troubled 737 Max plane will soon be safe to resume service.
“We have studied both crashes and we know what to fix,” he said in a brief statement to reporters before addressing a Senate panel. “Once the MAX returns to fly, it will be the safest airplane in the sky.”
Muilenburg is set to testify Tuesday before the Senate Commerce Committee, which is holding a hearing on aviation safety and the future of Boeing’s 737 Max jets. The hearing is expected to start at 10 a.m. ET.
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Standing before reporters shortly before the testimony, Muilenburg was much more reserved than in past statements about the Max crashes. He apologized to family members of the 346 people who died in the two crashes, and said that he understood that the crashes happened on his watch. “We understand that we have important work to do for the world,” said Muilenburg. “We are focused on safety.”
On the anniversary of the first of two deadly crashes involving Boeing 737 Max jets, the CEO is expected to tell Congress that the aircraft company knows it made mistakes and is throwing everything into fixing the plane.
“We have learned and are still learning from these accidents,” he is expected to say Tuesday, according to comments prepared for delivery. “We know we made mistakes and got some things wrong. We own that, and we are fixing them.”
Muilenburg will testify again on Wednesday before the House Transportation Committee. The appearances come as Boeing faces investigations by the Senate Commerce Committee and the House Transportation Committee, and a criminal probe by the Justice Department. It is also being sued by families of some of the 346 people who died in the crash of a Max off the coast of Indonesia on Oct. 29, 2018, and another in Ethiopia on March 10.
In an exclusive interview with CBS News in May, Muilenburg apologized to families involved in the two crashes.
“I do personally apologize to the families, as I’ve mentioned earlier we feel terrible about these accidents, and we apologize for what happened, we are sorry for the loss of lives in both accidents,” he said.
