Boeing may have misled FAA on MAX jet safety: sources
Boeing Co. turned over instant messages from 2016 between two employees that suggest the airplane maker may have misled the Federal Aviation Administration about a key safety system on the grounded 737 MAX, according to documents seen by Reuters.
The messages, first reported by Reuters on Friday, prompted FAA Administrator Steve Dickson to demand an “immediate” explanation from Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg for the delay in turning over the documents the company said it had found “some months ago.”
The messages deepened the crisis for the world’s largest airplane maker days before Muilenburg, who last Friday was stripped of his chairman title by the board, is due to testify before the Congress on the development of the 737 MAX.
The aircraft has been grounded worldwide since March following two fatal crashes within five months.
The FAA said on Friday that Boeing told it a day earlier about internal messages it had discovered “some months ago” that characterize “certain communications with the FAA during the original certification of the 737 MAX in 2016.”
The FAA said it found the messages “concerning” and “is reviewing this information to determine what action is appropriate.”
A person briefed on the matter said Boeing failed to turn over the documents to the FAA for four months and that the Justice Department is also in possession of the messages.
The Boeing internal messages raised questions about the performance of the so-called MCAS anti-stall system that has been tied to the two fatal crashes, one in Indonesia and another in Ethiopia.
The messages are between the MAX’S then-chief technical pilot, Mark Forkner, and another Boeing pilot, the sources said, and raised questions about the MCAS’S performance in the simulator in which he said it was “running rampant.”
The messages appear to be the first publicly known observations that MCAS behaved erratically during testing before the aircraft entered service.
Forkner has since left Boeing. Neither he nor his lawyer responded to requests for comment.