Boeing blasted for not disclosing pilot’s Max messages
A former senior Boeing test pilot told a co-worker that he unknowingly misled safety regulators about problems with a flight control system that would later be implicated in two deadly crashes of the company’s 737 Max.
Mark Forkner told another Boeing employee in 2016 that the flight system, called MCAS, was ‘‘egregious’’ and ‘‘running rampant’’ while he tested it in a flight simulator.
‘‘So I basically lied to the regulators (unknowingly),’’ wrote Forkner, then Boeing’s chief technical pilot for the 737.
The exchange occurred as Boeing was trying to convince the US Federal Aviation Administration that MCAS was safe. The system was designed at least in part to prevent the Max from stalling in some situations.
The FAA certified the plane without fully understanding MCAS, according to a panel of international safety regulators.
Forkner had asked the FAA about removing mention of MCAS from the pilot’s manual for the Max. The FAA allowed Boeing to do so, and most pilots did not know about the system until after the first crash, in October 2018 in Indonesia.
The Max was grounded worldwide in March this year after the second crash, in Ethiopia.
Boeing turned over a transcript of the messages to the US Congress and the Transportation Department yesterday, and the reaction was swift and negative.
‘‘This was intentionally withheld from us, which is absolutely outrageous,’’ House Transportation Committee Chairman Peter DeFazio said. He called it a smoking gun of Boeing wrongdoing.
FAA Administrator Stephen Dickson demanded an explanation from Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg, including why the company waited several months before telling the FAA about the messages.
The FAA said it ‘‘finds the substance of the document concerning’’, and was deciding what action to take in response.
Forkner left Boeing last year and joined Southwest Airlines, the biggest operator of the Boeing 737.
Forkner’s lawyer said the pilot was indicating in messages to a colleague that the flight simulator was not working like the plane.
‘‘There was no ‘lie’,’’ he said. ‘‘Based on everything he knew, he absolutely thought this plane was safe.’’