Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg apologized the lives lost in crashes of Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft in Indonesia and Ethiopia, according to a letter made public on the company’s website.
“WE ARE GETTING THE SOFTWARE UPDATE RIGHT”
“We at Boeing are sorry for the lives lost in the recent 737 accidents and are relentlessly focused on safety to ensure tragedies like this never happen again,” Muilenburg said in a videotaped statement posted on Twitter.
Muilenburg recognized the role in both crashes of a Boeing-approved flight system, called Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System. In certain dangerous situations, MCAS can cause pilots to lose control of an aircraft in response to erroneous data from the plane’s external sensors.
“We’re taking a comprehensive, disciplined approach, and taking the time to get the software update right,” Muilenburg said. “We’re nearing completion and anticipate its certification and implementation on the 737 MAX fleet worldwide in the weeks ahead.”