Ron Johnson: ‘Not Sure’ If Boeing Has a Culture of Safety, ‘Seems Like a Dysfunctional Company More Concerned with DEI’

BREWER: “Wisconsin senator and permanent subcommittee ranking member, on Subcommittee on Investigations, Senator Ron Johnson. Senator, it’s good to see you. So, you heard from the whistleblower today. I know you went in with concerns, you said so in your opening statement. So what’s next?”
Johnson: “Well, one of my primary concerns, I don’t want to be scaring the bejesus out of the public here. We need to be very careful and thoughtful in terms of how we present this information, but in preparation for the hearing, I just have to admit the testimony was beyond troubling. But, again, we need to hear from all the stakeholders. This is very early on. I am not sure I would have held the hearing as soon if I were chairman, but again, this is Chairman Blumenthal’s call. Again, this is something we have to look into. There is no doubt about it. We have to be talking to the airlines. We need to be talking to pilots. We need to be talking to mechanics. We need to be talking to the FAA. This is a very complex issue. First off, everybody wants Boeing to succeed. We have to have Boeing succeed. We want safety in the sky, so this has to be fully vetted. We need to make sure that Boeing has a culture of safety. I am not sure it has had one. I am not sure the current management is up to it. That is one of the troubling reports I entered into the record, is just talking about how the CEO was in one place, CFO was in another place. Again, it just seems like a dysfunctional company. More concern potentially about DEI. They scored great in terms of the FEC reports in terms of accomplishing all their DEI and ESG goals. They don’t score well in terms of their own policy goals that they’ve set. So, again, it’s just very troubling. But I try and take comfort in the fact that airline travel is still the safest form of travel. You know, I’m traveling all the time. I’m almost exclusively flying Boeing 737s. I really questioned a lot about the 737 Max issue. I did not find much comfort in the fact that Boeing engineers hid the MCAS system from FAA regulators. I mean, why nobody was prosecuted there, knowing they have this deferred prosecution agreement, that needs to be looked at as well. So, again, there are so many questions that need to be answered here. There is so much investigation that has to occur. Again, I just don’t trust the government agencies to really be on top of this. And right now, I have a lot of questions for Boeing, airlines, and everybody involved in this.”