Boeing high-flyer Brendan Nelson says news of Alaska Airlines accident was ‘devastating’

Boeing Global president Brendan Nelson says he was “devastated” when he heard the door had blown out of a 737 Max operated by Alaska Airlines.

The company made international headlines in January after the incident — which caused no fatalities — led regulators in the United States to ground 171 aircraft.

But the former Liberal leader-turned-executive says the model is safe.

“It was devastating,” Mr Nelson told The West Australian’s Leadership Matters breakfast in WA on Thursday morning.

“It was a relief the way the crew of Alaska Air, the way the passengers responded to the event, was a relief. But it was devastating.”

He said the company had made leadership changes and introduced a new digital management system for stricter supply chain oversight.

The US blowout followed two previous disasters in 2018 and 2019 — Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302.

When asked if the 737 Max was safe, he said “Of course it’s safe”.

“There’s not a day goes by that we won’t remember the 346 people killed in those two tragedies,” Mr Nelson said.

“We are responsible for it.”

He said the industry broadly had not compromised safety amid rocketing demand following the pandemic.

“We’ve seen unprecedented demand for commercial aviation and people wanting to fly coming out of the pandemic,” Mr Nelson said.

“It’s one of the things we’ve got consistently wrong, in underestimating how strong that demand has been.”

He said production of the 737 had been constrained to “stabilise the supply chain”.

The US Federal Aviation Administration audited the Virginia-based company’s production line in March and identified “non-compliance issues”, but did not release further details.

In May, Boeing submitted a fix-up plan pledging improved training, supplier oversight and simplifying processes.

That followed a $2.5 billion fine agreed in 2021 following the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crashes.