Boeing CEO Dave Clahoun is stepping down by the end of the year

Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun will step down by year-end in a broad management shakeup triggered by the planemaker's sprawling safety crisis, which stemmed from a January mid-air panel blowout on a 737 MAX plane.

The planemaker also said that Stan Deal, Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO, would retire, and Stephanie Pope would lead that business. Steve Mollenkopf has been appointed the new chair of the board.

Calhoun has been under pressure ever since the Jan. 5 incident, when a door plug ripped off an Alaska Airlines flight about 16,000 feet above the ground. The company is facing heavy regulatory scrutiny and U.S. authorities curbed production while it attempts to fix safety and quality issues.

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"It has been the greatest privilege of my life to serve Boeing," Calhoun said in a letter to Boeing employees. "The eyes of the world are on us, and I know that we will come through this moment a better company. We will remain squarely focused on completing the work we have done together to return our company to stability after the extraordinary challenges of the past five years, with safety and quality at the forefront of everything that we do."

Last week, a group of U.S. airline CEOs sought meetings with Boeing directors to express concern over the Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 accident. They said it was an unusual sign of frustration with the manufacturer's problems and Calhoun.

The company is in talks to buy its former subsidiary Spirit AeroSystems, which manufactured the door plug involved in the Alaska Airlines incident.

The company's crisis has frustrated airlines already struggling with delivery delays from Boeing and its rival Airbus, and the planemaker has been burning more cash than expected in this quarter than expected.

"For years, we prioritized the movement of the airplane through the factory over getting it done right, and that's got to change," Boeing CFO Brian West said last week.

The company's main rival, Airbus, recently clinched orders for 65 jets from two of Boeing's key Asian customers, which some saw as a sign of executives' concerns about Boeing.

Boeing shares were up 2.2% in premarket trading on the news.

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Dave Calhoun to step down as Boeing CEO in 2024