A breakdown for Boeing and the FAA after years of trust
NEW YORK: When Dennis Muilenburg, Boeing’s ousted chief, was summoned to Washington last month, he scarcely knew he was in for a dressing-down from the head of the Federal Aviation Administration.
FAA chief Steve Dickson — a former Delta Air Lines employee who in August took over the reins at the world’s most influential aviation regulator — had announced the day before that Boeing’s 737 MAX would not return to the skies before 2020.
The plane was grounded worldwide last March after two crashes in less than five months left 346 people dead.
The meeting between the two men was tense, according to a US official. Muilenburg had promised airlines and investors the MAX would be back in the sky by December 2019.
