Boeing Boss to Leave as Firm Faces Safety Crisis

Boeing boss Dave Calhoun will leave at the end of this year amid a deepening crisis over the firm's safety record. 

Boeing also said that the head of its commercial airlines division will retire immediately while its chairman will not stand for re-election. 

The firm is under pressure after an unused door blew out of a Boeing 737 Max in January shortly after take-off. 

No-one was injured but the firm's safety and quality control standards came under renewed scrutiny. 

Many analysts said a change in Boeing's leadership was overdue.
A shake-up at the top is necessary," said Stewart Glickman, equity analyst at CFRA Research, adding that he believed the current crisis stemmed from problems in the firm's corporate culture that only fresh insight would be able to fix. 

"I don't think you can change the culture with internal voices because I think this has been modus operandi for this company for too long." 

Mr Calhoun took on the chief executive role in early 2020 after the previous boss, Dennis Muilenburg, was ousted in the aftermath of one of the biggest scandals in Boeing's history. 

Within the space of five months, two brand new 737 Max planes had been lost in almost identical accidents that claimed the lives of 346 passengers and crew. 

When Mr Calhoun took over, he promised to strengthen Boeing's "safety culture" and "rebuild trust".