SEATTLE — Boeing announced Wednesday that it has removed the executive in charge of its 737 MAX program. The departure of Ed Clark was one of multiple leadership changes the airplane maker’s chief executive announced in an email to staff. The move comes a month and a half after a door plug blew off a Boeing 737-MAX 9 aircraft midflight, resulting in a weekslong grounding of the planes and federal investigations into what caused it.

What You Need To Know

  • Boeing announced Wednesday that it has removed the executive in charge of its 737 MAX program

  • Ed Clark had been with the company 18 years

  • Kate Ringgold will take Clark's position

  • Boeing CEO Stan Deal told staff in an email the changes were needed to ensure "that every airplane we deliver meets or exceeds all quality and safety requirements"

CEO Stan Deal said the changes are intended to ensure “that every airplane we deliver meets or exceeds all quality and safety requirements,” he wrote in the email. “Our customers demand, and deserve, nothing less.”

Clark had worked with Boeing for 18 years. He is succeeded by Boeing’s 737 program vice president and general manager Katie Ringgold.

Boeing named Elizabeth Lund to a new position overseeing Boeing Commercial Aircraft quality control, quality assurance and newly announced initiatives to step up inspections of its planes and fine tune its manufacturing operations to improve safety.

Mike Fleming will succeed Lund as senior vice president and general manager of Boeing’s airplane programs, overseeing production of the 737, 767, 777 and 787 aircraft.

Earlier this month, the National Transportation Safety Board reported several bolts were missing on the Boeing 737-9 MAX that experienced a midair blowout on an Alaska Airlines flight Jan. 5. Its preliminary report said the bolts had been removed by Boeing’s fuselage supplier to replace a different part of the plane but were never replaced.

The NTSB issued its report the same day Federal Aviation Administrator Michael Whitaker testified before a House committee that the agency is “aggressively expanding oversight of new aircraft with increased floor presence at all Boeing facilities” and is “launching an analysis of potential safety-focused reforms around quality control and delegation.”

The FAA and Boeing have both launched investigations into the company’s production lines to determine if the planes are built to conform to their approved design. The NTSB investigation into the Jan. 5 incident is ongoing.