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Ethical breaches have cost Boeing serious money, including a $27 billion (£14 billion) tanker contract with the American government. The company was temporarily banned from bidding on military satellite-launch contracts after being caught stealing documents from a rival, Lockheed Martin. The problems led to the ousting of Stonecipher’s predecessor, Phil Condit, and jail for two other Boeing executives.

Seen as a safe pair of hands, Stonecipher was expected to steer Boeing back on track before handing over to a new chief executive.

He started by putting ethics firmly on the agenda, creating an internal governance office that reported to him and bringing in a new set of ethical guidelines. He required every employee to sign an ethics statement and encouraged staff to blow the whistle on anybody who brought Boeing into disrepute.

At the company’s shareholder meeting last year, Stonecipher delivered a message to employees of “zero tolerance” for anything less than the highest ethical standards.

“Without integrity you cannot conduct business successfully,” he added in Boeing’s in-house magazine. “Firing people who lack integrity is good business.”

To then use the company’s e-mail system and time to send pornographic e-mails to his lover showed “a complete lapse of leadership”, said Dee Soder, founder of The CEO Perspective, a management consultancy.

“This is a company with moral problems, supplying the US government in the midst of a war,” she said. “The chief executive needs to focus on reducing distractions and on working extra hard to fix Boeing’s image problem, not on adding to it.”

Boeing has been at pains to state that Stonecipher is not being sacked for the affair itself. It said the affair violated the company’s code of conduct not because it was extramarital, but because Stonecipher had shown poor judgment and placed Boeing in a potentially embarrassing situation.

Lew Platt, the board chairman, said: “The board concluded that the facts reflected poorly on Harry’s judgment and would impair his ability to lead the company.

“The resignation was in no way related to the company’s operational performance or financial condition, both of which remain strong,” said Platt.

“However, the CEO must set the standard for unimpeachable professional and personal behaviour, and the board determined that this was the right and necessary decision under the circumstances.”

SODER said Boeing’s case was special and should not be seen solely as an example of America’s new moral values.

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