Boeing's CEO said the safety systems on its 737 Max 8 jets were properly designed and seemed to suggest that two plane crashes the killed almost 350 people were due to pilot error.

Dennis Muilenburg spoke at Boeing's annual shareholder meeting in Chicago.  The company's share price has tumbled ten percent since the latest crash involving an Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max 8, and shareholders are getting nervous.  All 157 people on board died in that crash; months earlier, a Lion Air 737 Max 8 went down in the Java Sea off Indonesia last year, killing 189 people.

But while Muilenburg maintained an automatic stability system was only one factor in a chain of events that led to the disasters, more reports surfaced to question the Max 8's safely.  The Wall Street Journal revealed that Boeing failed to activate a safety feature linked to sensors on 737 Max planes bought by its biggest customer, Southwest Airlines.  Another report emerged claiming that whistleblowers connected to Boeing contacted the US airline regulator about the system.

Despite standing by his plane, Muilenburg acknowledged the company is making changes to the Max 8 design.  "Going forward we have identified a way to improve," he said. "I am confident that that again will make one of the safest airplanes in the air to fly We know this is a link in both accidents that we can break."