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Boeing accused of 'cutting corners' over crisis-hit 737 MAX

Dennis Muilenburg said before the hearing he was focused on making sure crashes involving 737 MAX planes could not happen again.

A Boeing 737 Max takes part in a flyng display at the first day of the 52nd Paris Air Show at Le Bourget airport near Paris, France June 19, 2017
Image: Ryanair is among Boeing customers to be claiming compensation for delays to their orders and growth plans
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The chief executive of Boeing has faced accusations of a cover-up and "cutting corners" in the development of the 737 MAX, after two of the aircraft crashed killing 346 people.

Dennis Muilenburg was facing questions from a US Congressional committee inquiry about emails, sent in 2016 by the-then chief test pilot, that showed worries about a key flight control system - widely blamed for contributing to the accidents.

All versions of the 737 MAX aircraft were grounded in March - days after an Ethiopian Airlines jet came down outside Addis Ababa.

Relatives of those killed in the Ethiopia crash have demanded the 737 MAX planes are withdrawn from service permanently
Image: Relatives of those killed in the Ethiopia crash have demanded the 737 MAX planes are withdrawn from service permanently

It was a year ago today that a Lion Air flight suffered a similar fate in the Java Sea.

The accidents left a total of 346 people dead, 189 of them on the Lion Air plane.

The company has been rushing to fix a number of issues with the MAX.

An anti-stall device on the , called the Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), was the main focus of the updates.

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Mr Muilenburg told the Senate commerce & transportation committee "significant changes" have been made to the control functions.

Dennis Muilenburg has been the CEO of Boeing since 2015
Image: Dennis Muilenburg has been the chief executive of Boeing since 2015

He said he only became fully aware of the contents of the 2016 emails, showing MCAS "running rampant" during a simulator test, a "few weeks ago".

Boeing was also accused, during the hearing, of misleading US regulators by keeping explanations of the MCAS system from pilot manuals and training regimes.

Democrat senator, Tammy Duckworth, accused the company of setting "pilots up for failure" as a result.

She said: "Boeing has not told the whole truth to this committee and to the families and to the people looking at this ... and these families are suffering because of it."

Boeing has blamed a "chain of events" for both crashes. Mr Muilenburg explained that pilots were trained to respond to the same effect caused by an MCAS failure, a condition called runaway trim which can be caused by other problems.

The executive, who was stripped of his dual chairman role earlier this month, admitted several mistakes were made in the development process.

Boeing, which is facing billions of dollars in compensation claims from the families of victims and airline customers, is hoping regulators will grant clearance to the updated planes by the end of the year.

Mr Muilenburg told the committee they could only return to the air if they were safe.

He insisted Boeing continued to learn from the tragedies, saying they had prompted a shake-up of its company-wide safety procedures in addition to the improvements with the 737 MAX aircraft.

Boeing shares were trading 2% higher in the wake of his evidence.

He began his remarks with an address to relatives of those who died attending the hearing on Capitol Hill.

Mr Muilenburg insisted Boeing was "deeply sorry" for the crashes but admitted there was little he could say that could bring closure for them.

Commenting on speculation surrounding his own future as CEO, he told reporters outside the hearing that while the company was "humble", he had not been involved in any discussions about his own position.

He said he was not going to resign as he was "entirely focused" on doing everything he could to make sure there could be no repeat of the tragedies.