‘I’ll blame me’: Butch Wilmore takes responsibility for Boeing Starliner failure, ‘could have asked some questions’

Astronaut Butch Wilmore took the blame for the technical glitch of the Boeing Starliner capsule that delayed his and Sunita Williams' return from the International Space Station (ISS) to Earth for over nine months, saying that he could have asked more questions to potentially change the outcome.

“I’ll start and point the finger, and I’ll blame me. I could have asked some questions, and the answers to those questions could have turned the tide. All the way up and down the chain. We all are responsible. We all own this," Butch Wilmore said.

On Monday, Butch Wilmore and Sunita Williams addressed their first press conference after their return from space in March. They are scheduled to meet Boeing officials on Wednesday to discuss the issues with the flight.

Sunita Williams on Boeing Starliner

Meanwhile, Sunita Williams said the Starliner has “a lot of capability” and she expects it to succeed. Butch Wilmore assured that all issues with the Boeing flight will be rectified.

“We're going to fix them. We're going to make it work,” he said.

In June 2024, Sunita Williams and Butch Wilmore travelled to the ISS for a scheduled eight-day mission. However, their expedition lasted 286 days due to technical issues with the propulsion system of the Boeing Starliner spacecraft. The two NASA astronauts were the first crew to fly Boeing's Starliner on a test flight. The defective capsule returned to Earth in September 2024.

Experience in space

Butch Wilmore addressed speculation that they had been abandoned or stranded in space. He said, “Okay, in certain respects, we were stuck. In certain respects, maybe we were stranded, but in the grand scheme of things, we weren’t stuck because we were prepared and trained.”

Gratitude to Donald Trump and Elon Musk

The astronauts expressed gratitude to Elon Musk and US President Donald Trump for their efforts to bring them back to Earth. The duo returned to Earth aboard the SpaceX Dragon on March 19.

"Our situation allowed a lot of people, including the President and Elon, to look at what's going on on the International Space Station, take it very seriously, and understand that our involvement as a country, as a space-faring nation, is really important throughout the world," Williams said.