Flight 1282’s postscript is prologue for Boeing’s Kelly Ortberg

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Washington, D.C. — Thursday was Kelly Ortberg’s first day at work. He traded in his years of needing a visitor badge for a permanent blue one as the 13th chief executive officer of The Boeing Company. The sprawling aerospace empire built over 108 years, which he will now lead, is ailing badly.

It’s almost impossible to overstate the scale of the challenge that lies ahead. The far-reaching internal mistrust at Boeing and its flailing safety culture have been laid bare after two grueling days of hearings by the National Transportation Safety Board into the Jan. 5 accident aboard Alaska Airlines flight 1282, which set in motion a sequence of events that led to Ortberg’s appointment nine days ago.

Related: Live Updates: NTSB Alaska 1282 Investigative Hearing

“He’s got a lot of work to do. A lot of work to do,” said NTSB Chair Jennifer Homendy, who oversaw the lengthy testimony and questioning this week. Homendy wants to sit down with Ortberg “to talk about some of my concerns” with Boeing’s safety culture and Federal Aviation Administration oversight of the plane maker.

After the two days of testimony, the precise cause of the four missing bolts on Alaska 1282 remains unclear, but the inquest by the safety watchdog points in one unified direction. “This is all about the safety culture on the factory floor and within Boeing, the safety culture needs a lot of work. It is not there,” said Homendy. “From the evidence itself, from what you see in the interviews, there’s not a lot of trust. There’s a lot of distrust within the workforce and the management that has a role.”

It’s why, at least in part, Ortberg’s new assignment began the day after the hearing’s conclusion. Where the NTSB’s 20 hours of hearings leave off, Ortberg’s work now begins — including an immediate need to forge a lasting détente with Boeing’s biggest union in the face of a looming work stoppage.

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