“We had missteps. We owned those,” said Leanne Caret, CEO of Boeing Defense, Space and Security, during a briefing at the Paris Air Show Monday.

As previously reported, the Air Force agreed this spring to start accepting KC-46 tankers from Boeing again after the discovery of foreign debris halted production for the second time. Moving forward, all tankers will be subject to stringent inspections of all sealed compartments of the plane for foreign object debris, or FOD.

Those inspections are taking place and aircraft are being delivered, Caret confirmed, with a multi-tier inspection process happening in partnership with the Air Force both for new deliveries and aircraft already in the fleet.

“Fair to say we’re going above and beyond what [the Air Force] required,” said Greg Smith, Boeing’s chief financial officer and executive vice president of enterprise performance. “We’re doing what we feel is best, and learning from it… We have to set the bar higher than our customer has and deliver on those expectations we set for ourselves.”

The Air Force has said that the FOD found posed no safety of flight risk and was well within what the Defense Contracts Management Agency finds on many aircraft programs.

“But it’s not acceptable to have it on a new aircraft that we bought,” said Will Roper, the Air Force’s assistant secretary for acquisition, technology and logistics, in April on the sidelines of Space Symposium. He added that Boeing would do the inspections “on their nickel,” though Caret declined to comment on any changes to the contract or the amount of funding withheld to pay for the added layer of scrutiny.

“The debris and tools that were left on KC-46 upon its delivery were unacceptable. We took swift decisive actions,” Caret said. “We’re using this opportunity as our rallying cry – to ensure we enhance our process, [and] more specifically for first time quality across every aspect of the business across the company.”

“Our customers deserve better,” she added. “I personally apologized to our customers. This will not happen again.”

The KC-46 Pegasus makes its air show debut at Le Bourget.

The Joint Multi-Role Technology Demonstrator effort will inform requirements for the U.S. Army’s FVL family of systems, which will come online in the 2030s.

The Defiant is designed to fly at twice the speed and range of today’s conventional helicopters and offers advanced agility and maneuverability, according to the Sikorsky-Boeing team. Data from the Defiant will help the Army develop requirements for new utility helicopters expected to enter service in the early 2030s.

The Defiant’s first flight was bumped to 2019 following a technical issue discovered during ground tests. Competitor Bell’s V-280 Valor tilt-rotor aircraft has been flying since December 2017.

MUNICH — National Security Advisor H.R.McMaster made an appeal to NATO members and allies at the Munich Security Conference to look hard at who they’re doing business with overseas and cut off funding that indirectly funds Hezbollah and other proxy militias that weaken Middle East nations to bolster Iranian influence.

The Iranian regime continues to get support from commercial entities, affiliated with the Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – “including Mahan Air, a company that lands right here in Munich airport,” said McMaster, referring to a report released at the end of 2017 by the National Council of Resistance of Iran that stated the Iran’s largest commercial airline in fact works as a tool for Iran’s expansionist policies.

In October 2017, President Donald Trump called for tougher sanctions against the IRGC, and the Treasury Department announced it was designating the IRGC as a terrorist entity under a White House Executive Order, for support of a number of terrorist groups, including Hizballah and Hamas, as well as to the Taliban. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin at the time said the IRGC has played “a central role to Iran becoming the world’s foremost state sponsor of terror,” urging the private sector to recognize that the IRGC permeates much of the Iranian economy.

“What Iran is actually doing is applying the Hezbollah model to the greater Middle East,” McMaster said. “They want the Arab world perpetually weak, and [they want] weak governments in power that are dependent on Iran for support, while they grow terrorist organizations, militias, illegal arms groups outside that government’s control that can turn against government if that government acts against Iranian interests.”

Beyond Syria, this approach is happening in Iraq, where IRGC has grown Popular Mobilization Forces, as well as in Yemen. That network of proxies becomes and more capable as Iran seeds to them more destructive weapons, McMaster said, nd that is funded through commercial means.

Click here for full coverage from the Munich Security Conference

“When you invest in Iran, you’re investing in the IRGC. You might as well cut the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps a check and say, ‘please use this to commit more murder across the Middle East,’” McMaster said. “And when we look at the biggest trading partners with Iran, we of course see Russia, we see China. But we also see Japan, South Korea and Germany. It’s time to focus business intelligence efforts to figure out who we are really doing business with, and cut off funding.”