Messages hint employees may have misled FAA on 737 Max
Boeing turned over instant messages from 2016 between two employees that suggest the aircraft manufacturer 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 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 aircraft maker days before Mr Muilenburg, who was stripped of his chairman title by the board earlier this month, is due to testify before 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 that Boeing told it a day earlier about internal messages it had discovered “some months ago” that characterise “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 source 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 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”.
Mr Forkner has since left Boeing. Neither he nor his lawyer responded to requests for comment.
The Seattle Times reported in September that Mr Forkner repeatedly invoked his Fifth Amendment right to not turn over documents subpoenaed by the Justice Department.
Boeing said the company “brought to the committee’s attention a document containing statements by a former Boeing employee”,
Mr Forkner said in one text message, “I basically lied to the regulators (unknowingly).” The other employee responded that “it wasn’t a lie, no one told us that was the case” of an issue with MCAS.
At one point Mr Forkner said “there are still some real fundamental issues” in the simulator.
Boeing is revising the 737 Max software to add more safeguards and require the MCAS system to receive input from two key sensors.
The FAA reiterated that it is “following a thorough process, not a prescribed timeline, for returning the Boeing 737 Max to passenger service. The agency will lift the grounding order only after we have determined the aircraft is safe”.
Airline profits worldwide are taking a hit as 737 Max jets are grounded, forcing more than 100 daily flight cancellations at large US operators such as Southwest Airlines and American Airlines.
Southwest, which has delayed the return of the plane to its schedule until February, said it was unaware of the internal messages but continued to work with Boeing and the FAA “in their shared pursuit of safety”.
Separately, the US Senate Commerce Committee confirmed it will question Mr Muilenburg at an October 29 hearing, one day before a House of Representatives panel is scheduled to question him.
Boeing shares fell 6.7 per cent after the Reuters report, helping to drag the Dow Jones industrial average down to a session low.
Federal prosecutors, aided by the FBI, the Department of Transportation’s inspector general and several blue-ribbon panels, are investigating the 737 Max’s certification.