Rep. Dan Kildee (D-Mich.) told CNN on Wednesday that he believes Congress may need to subpoena Boeing if the company will not appear before lawmakers to answer questions about recent fatal crashes of its 737 Max 8 planes.
“I think the questions have to be answered, and if they’re not going to be answered in the near term voluntarily by those who have information that could help us understand what took place, then I think Congress then would absolutely have a duty to act and subpoena those people to come and testify,” Kildee said.
{mosads}He also said he believes that Americans should not be flying on Boeing’s 737 Max 8 planes until more information is available.
“This is one of those cases where we should err — clearly err — on the side of public safety, at least until we have a better understanding of what is the underlying cause behind these crashes,” Kildee said.
“My personal preference would be that we not have Americans flying on these planes until we have a better understanding of what the cause of these two very deadly crashes were,” he added.
An Ethiopian Airlines flight of a Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft crashed on Sunday, killing 157 people on board. In October, a 737 Max 8 crashed during a Lion Air flight, killing 189 in Indonesia.
President Trump on Wednesday issued an emergency order grounding Boeing’s Max 8 and Max 9 planes, following a similar move by Canada, the European Union and other nations.
“The grounding will remain in effect pending further investigation, including examination of information from the aircraft’s flight data recorders and cockpit recorders,” the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said in a statement.
Boeing issued a statement in support of the grounding.
“Boeing continues to have full confidence in the safety of the 737 MAX,” the company said in the statement. “However … Boeing has determined — out of an abundance of caution and in order to reassure the flying public of the aircraft’s safety — to recommend to the FAA the temporary suspension of operations of the entire global fleet of 371 737 MAX aircraft.”
“We are doing everything we can to understand the cause of the accidents in partnership with the investigators, deploy safety enhancements and help ensure this does not happen again,” the company added.
The Hill has reached out to Boeing for comment on Kildee’s statements.