A Boeing executive in charge of 737 Max program is leaving the company in first shake-up following the midair door plug blowout

A Boeing 737 Max. JUSTIN TALLIS/AFP via Getty Images

• The Boeing executive who oversaw the 737 Max program is leaving the company.
• Ed Clark’s departure follows a midair blowout on a 737 Max flight in January due to missing bolts.
• The announcement in a Wednesday memo marks the first major staffing shake-up since the disaster. 

The Boeing executive responsible for the company’s 737 Max program is out at the company weeks after one of its aircraft suffered a midair blowout on a January flight.

Ed Clark, who oversaw production of the 737 Max, is “leaving the company” after almost 18 years, Stan Deal, chief executive of Boeing’s commercial airplane division, said in a company memo obtained by Business Insider.

Clark’s departure marks the first major staffing shake-up since last month’s midair disaster.

On an Alaska Airlines flight from Portland, Oregon, to Ontario, California, a door plug on a Boeing 737 Max 9 blew out soon after departure, leaving a massive hole in the side of the plane. Nobody was injured in the incident.

The National Transportation Safety Board said missing bolts were responsible for the disaster. The Federal Aviation Administration quickly grounded all Boeing 737 Max 9 jets for inspections following the incident, and several instances of loose bolts on additional planes were uncovered.

Last month’s incident is only the most recent problem to plague the Boeing 737 Max model. The jets were grounded for 20 months in 2019 and 2020 after two crashes killed nearly 350 people.

Clark had been at Boeing for 18 years, according to the Wednesday memo, but had only been overseeing the Max program since March 2021. He previously worked as a chief engineer on the model.

Katie Ringgold, former vice president of 737 delivery operations, is set to replace Clark immediately, Deal said in the memo.

The company also announced a staffing restructuring among executives in its Boeing Commercial Airplanes unit this week.