Did Boeing just admit fault in 737 MAX crashes?

Boeing CEO David Calhoun spoke to NBC News this morning, where he reaffirmed his belief that it will take two to three years before air travel returns to 2019 levels. He also said it’s “most likely” that a major U.S. airline will go out of business because of the global shutdown. But he talked about more than just the future of air travel.

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Today Show‘s Savannah Guthrie eventually turned the conversation to the two deadly MAX crashes and the FAA re-certification process.

That’s when Calhoun made a very interesting admission when discussing the planes.

“We made a bad assumption with respect to the design envelope for that airplane at that moment in time, under that condition,” he said. “Our assumption about how a pilot would react in a very tense, difficult moment was wrong. Simple as that.”

Did Calhoun just admit that Boeing made a mistake with its new flight control system that contributed to the crash of those two planes and the deaths of 346 people? Go to the 5:44 mark of the video and judge for yourself.

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I have asked Boeing if there needs to be any clarification. From the interview video, you can tell the answers were edited, and edited badly, quite frankly. And considering NBC News admitted it deceptively edited an interview on Meet the Press Sunday, I want to make sure the network isn’t putting words in Calhoun’s mouth.

He did go on to say he has complete confidence in the MAX.

“The FAA’s work has been as thorough as anything I have ever seen,” Calhoun said. “We’ve worked every scenario we can possibly work into the testing programs, and it does exceedingly well.”

Boeing is still hoping for re-certification this summer.

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