Dan Mitchinson: US correspondent on the CEO of Boeing being grilled in court

Boeing's chief executive Dave Calhoun was questioned by members of the US Senate over the various safety issues and incidents impacting the company.

Calhoun was quick to apologise to the impacted victims and their families, following a turbulent year for the business.

US correspondent Dan Mitchinson says this won't be the last of the high-profile investigations against Boeing. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Dan Mitchinson US correspondences with US. Now, Hi, Dan, Hey,
hither on a scale of one to teen, how tough
was the time that the Boeing CEO.

Speaker 2 (00:06):
Had I guess it depends on how you look at it.
I mean, doesn't it because he's still going to walk
away with that thirty something million dollar paycheck. We're talking
about David Calhoun, who was before the Senate Subcommittee on
Investigations today and he apologized to the families of the
victims who died in the Boeing seven thirty seven Max

(00:28):
crashes or two more than five years ago. He hasn't
spoken directly, he said, to any of the whistleblowers who
have alleged to have taken shortcuts and jeopardize the safety.
But you know, the big takeaway that I got from
this was the acknowledge that the company had retaliated against
employees who have raised safety concerns. And you know, many

(00:48):
of the families who showed up at this hearing said, hey,
there's got to be some kind of criminal prosecution. They
say the executives have been held accountable, and like you
just heard their outraged at Calhoun's salary, which is almost
three million dollars a year.

Speaker 1 (01:01):
Yeah, and so did he outline exactly what kind of
action they were taking against whistleblowers?

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Uh, not exactly. I think he kind of talked his
way around that a little bit, but he has he has,
you know, said that, okay, we did offer this kind
of retaliation and that could be a number of things,
from you know, a demotion in in your position to
being let go when they did a number round of
cutoffs during the pandemic. You know how these things work.

(01:28):
I mean, there's always a way around it without it
actually saying well, we're retaliating against it.

Speaker 1 (01:33):
Yeah, fair enough. How did the apology go down?

Speaker 2 (01:36):
I don't think anybody, I think they took it at
face value. I think most of the people that you know,
thought it was just him, you know, saying what he
had to say. And you know, nothing's going to be
taken away from him. I mean, it's not like the
board or Boeing is going to cut his salary by
any means. But you know, there are changes at the
at the top, and I think there will be more
investigations into this. And not to mention, a lot of

(01:57):
people are concerned, especially going into summer over here, about
flying some of these aircraft.

Speaker 1 (02:01):
Jan is justin Timberlake having a hard time or something.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
I don't know what's going on with him. I mean,
he was arrested early this morning in sag Harbor, New
York for allegedly driving while intoxicated. And then a couple
of hours later he made his first court appearance and
he's he's been arraigned on one count of driving while
under the influence, and he was released without bail. I mean,
you know, there's no big deal about that. Everybody knows
who he is and where he's going and whatever. And

(02:25):
according to the you know, a statement that the Hollywood
Reporter got, I guess there was an officer that saw
him failing to stop at a posted stops sign and
then he couldn't stay in his lane, and so they
pulled him over. And you know, oh, it's justin Timberlake.
And he had bloodshot eyes and he couldn't speak, and
he was slurred, and he filled all the sobriety tests.
So he was cuffed and taken in by police and

(02:46):
he'll have another court appearance coming up on the I
think the twenty sixth of July.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
Apart from remember that there was that prisoner who became
a model after he was released because he was such
a hot apart from him. This is the hottest nug
shot yet, isn't it.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
You know, it wasn't bad. I mean, I guess you
could say it was pro decently. I forgot about the
guy you just mentioned about until you said it.

Speaker 1 (03:07):
I've got it filed in my head. Oh, it wasn't bad, Dan,
Who was better? How was your much?

Speaker 2 (03:13):
One of the two? Oh? Gosh, you know if the
guy didn't smile that the first one he was okay,
there was something I can't remember if he was missing
some teeth or not when he smiled, or what it
was about him. It was kind of.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
Strange, but you know, fair enough. Hey, so what's going
on in Wyoming? Are they gonna They're not seriously gonna
lickt an Ai Bot as the mayor?

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Are they okay? There's I mean, the guy that's kind
of saying this is that maybe this is kind of
a stunt. But the question is can of bought powered
by artificial intelligence? We're on a city. So this guy
named Victor Miller says he thinks so. So he filed
paperwork for him in his customized chat bought named Virtual
Virtual Integrated Citizen, which is VIC to run from air

(03:55):
of Cheyenne, Wyoming. So he filed out all the paperwork
and he says he's going to serve as sort of
an avatar for the box, so he'll do the ribbon
cutting stuff. Bot's going to handle all the decision making
if he wins and advances to the November election. But
there's a speed ump in this because the Secretary of
State of Wyoming says this is not legally. He says,
it is very clear that we have a law that

(04:16):
AI is not eligible as a candidate in any office.
But the guy that's trying this is saying, you know what,
this bot could be impartial, he could make somewhat rationalisms,
but then you have others that say, you know what,
data alone doesn't result in better decision making, especially if
you don't have real life experience or common sense, which
is kind of ironic when you think common sense and politicians.

(04:36):
But you get what he's saying.

Speaker 1 (04:38):
Dan, thank you very much, appreciate it, mate, look after yourself.
Talk to you on Friday. That's Dan Mitch's and US
correspondent for more from Hither Duplessy Allen Drive, Listen live
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