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Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun is set to step down at the end of this year, as part of a series of high-level personnel changes at the embattled US plane maker.
Boeing said on Monday that Chairman Larry Kellner would also leave the board. He will be replaced by Steve Mollenkopf, former CEO of Qualcomm, who will lead the search for Calhoun's successor.
These changes come as the company faces the repercussions of an incident that occurred in January, in which a plane door exploded mid-flight. The incident is being investigated by the US Department of Justice and the US Federal Aviation Administration.
In a third important change, Boeing announced that Stan Dale, head of its commercial aircraft division, who was at the heart of the recent crisis sweeping the group, will retire immediately. He will be replaced by the company's chief operating officer, Stephanie Pope.
Calhoun called the January accident on an Alaska Airlines flight a “watershed moment” for Boeing. The company “must continue to respond to this incident with humility and full transparency,” he said in an internal memo to employees.
Boeing shares rose more than 3 percent in premarket trading on Monday.
Calhoun, who has served on Boeing's board since 2009, replaced Dennis Muilenburg as CEO four years ago in the wake of two 737 MAX 8 crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.
The planes had a design flaw affecting the nose, and the company paid more than $2.5 billion to defer criminal prosecution by the Justice Department for misleading aviation regulators.
This is a developing story
