Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun to step down in wake of ongoing safety problems

New York (CNN) — In major shakeup of Boeing’s leadership, CEO Dave Calhoun said Monday he intends to leave the beleaguered company by the end of the year. The company’s chairman and head of the commercial airplane unit are also leaving.

Posted 12:07 p.m. Mar 25 — Updated 12:46 p.m. Mar 25

Chris Isidore

, CNN

CNN — New York (CNN) — In major shakeup of Boeing’s leadership, CEO Dave Calhoun said Monday he intends to leave the beleaguered company by the end of the year. The company’s chairman and head of the commercial airplane unit are also leaving.

Boeing’s chairman, Larry Kellner, will not stand for re-election as a board director. The board has elected former Qualcomm CEO Steve Mollenkopf to succeed him.

The company also announced that Stan Deal, CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, is retiring. Stephanie Pope, Boeing’s chief operating officer since January, is taking his place effective immediately.

Boeing has been buffeted by more than five years of problems with its airplanes, including two fatal crashes of the 737 Max in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people, and most recently a door plug that blew out of the side of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max in January, leaving a gaping hole in the side of the plane. The problems have led to multiple groundings for safety issues and more than $31 billion in cumulative losses.

In a letter to Boeing employees Monday, Calhoun called the Alaska Airlines incident “a watershed moment for Boeing.”

“The eyes of the world are on us,” he said in announcing his departure plans. “We are going to fix what isn’t working, and we are going to get our company back on the track towards recovery and stability.”

Calhoun, 66, a longtime board member at Boeing, became chairman of the company in late 2019, when the board stripped his predecessor Dennis Muilenburg of that title. He was tapped as CEO after Muilenburg was ousted in December of that year, starting in the job in January 2020.

Calhoun’s tenure began about halfway through a 20-month grounding of the 737 Max due to a design flaw that was determined to have caused the two crashes; and just before the Covid pandemic broke out globally, causing a near halt in air travel and massive losses for the airlines Boeing depends upon to buy its planes.

This is a developing story and will be updated.

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