Boeing: Chief Technical Pilot charged on 737 MAX crashes

US Regulators have chosen their first potential prosecution regarding the airworthiness of the Boeing 737 MAX that suffered two catastrophic crashes.

Former Boeing Chief Technical Pilot, Mark Forker has been charged with deceiving the Federal Aviation Administrations (FAA) Aircraft Evaluation Group during the process of certification of the Boeing 737 MAX aircraft by the US Justice Department

The charge relates to the provision of false information about the new flight controls for the MAX, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS. It is alleged that this deception lead to the nature and effect of the new controls not being included in the aeroplanes flight manuals. This meant that pilots used to driving previous versions of the 737 were not required to go through a period of retraining and recertification, which formed one of the attractive points in the planes sales pitch.

Apparently, Forkner claimed the use of ‘Jedi mind tricks’ on regulators and also stating that the MAX was ‘designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys’.

Boeing – not subject to criminal charges

In the dying days of the Trump administration, the FAA agreed that it would not pursue criminal charges against Boeing if the aircraft behemoth agreed to cooperate by making current and former employees available to testify in other prosecutions.

2PAXfly Takeout

This is another timely reminder to wear your seatbelt when seated. Holding you close to your seat will protect you from the sort of injuries sustained on this flight, when unsecured passengers flew to the ceiling of the aircraft, and then came crashing down once the ‘drop’ ceased.

The hope will be that this is an anomaly – a ‘freak accident’ in casual parlance. If it is a systemic error either mechanical or electronic, then this is a larger concern for the airlines that fly Boeing Dreamliner 787 aircraft. Let’s hope it isn’t. If it is, it will pile on the woes to Boeing’s existing stack.

It’s easy for Boeing to target a scapegoat like Forkner, but its Boeing and its board that provided the corporate infrastructure that enabled a plane to be built and software to be deployed that killed 346 people – and they should bear the moral and financial pain of that murderous decision.