The company’s chief executive, David Calhoun, said he would leave at the end of the year. Stan Deal, Boeing’s head of commercial planes, departed immediately.
Boeing announced Monday that its chief executive, David Calhoun, would step down at the end of 2024 as part of a broad management shake-up, as the aircraft maker grapples with its most significant safety crisis in years.
Stan Deal, the head of the division that makes planes for commercial customers, will retire immediately and will be replaced by Stephanie Pope, the company’s chief operating officer, the company said in a statement.
Boeing also announced that its chairman, Larry Kellner, would not stand for re-election. The board elected Steve Mollenkopf, an electrical engineer by training and the former chief executive of Qualcomm, as its new chairman. In that role, he will lead the process of choosing Boeing’s next chief executive.
The management overhaul comes less than three months after a panel, known as a door plug, blew off a Boeing Max 9 during an Alaska Airlines flight on Jan. 5. The incident plunged the company back into crisis after crashes in 2018 and 2019 of its Max 8 planes that killed nearly 350 people.
The Alaska incident renewed questions about the safety of Max planes and Boeing’s commitment to quality. Airline chief executives publicly expressed frustration with the manufacturer. The Federal Aviation Administration, which regulates the plane maker, grounded similar planes across the United States. When it cleared the planes to fly again in late January, it also imposed limits on Boeing’s planned production increase of Max planes, foiling the company’s latest attempt to compete with its European rival Airbus.
In recent weeks, Boeing has come under mounting scrutiny. An F.A.A. audit of Boeing’s Max production found dozens of lapses. The agency gave Boeing 90 days to address its issues. The Justice Department has also reached out to passengers of the Alaska Airlines flight, informing them that they may be victims of a federal crime.
