737 MAX MCAS now leading to indictments

[RS Wood]

From the «not my fault» department:
Feed: SoylentNews
Title: Criminal Charges Coming for 737 MAX Chief Technical Pilot
Author: FatPhil
Date: Wed, 22 Sep 2021 17:07:00 -0400
Link: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=21/09/22/0759206&from=rss

upstart[1] writes:

Criminal Charges Coming For MAX Chief Technical Pilot[2]:

Boeing’s former chief technical pilot on the 737 MAX is expected to be
indicted on criminal charges in the next few days. The Wall Street Journal
first reported Thursday[3] that Mark Forkner, who left Boeing about two years
ago, is expected to be indicted in the next few days to face allegations that
he misled FAA officials on the significance of the addition of the Maneuvering
Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) to the MAX. MCAS, which adjusts the
angle of the horizontal stabilizer to change the pitch of the aircraft, was
installed to compensate for aerodynamic differences between the MAX and
earlier generation 737s. It was designed to operate in the background without
pilot input and was cited in two fatal crashes involving the MAX.

According to the Seattle Times[4], part of the Deferred Prosecution Agreement
between Boeing and the FAA called out Forkner and his deputy chief pilot for
allegedly misrepresenting the significance of the addition of the MCAS while
exonerating senior brass. The Times says Forkner will likely argue that he was
under intense pressure from above to convince the FAA that the MAX was so
similar to the earlier 737s that minimal type training would be required, thus
saving potential customers millions in training costs. In the two crashes,
MCAS overpowered flight crews after getting erroneous data from angle of
attack indicators and put the aircraft, one operated by Lion Air and the
second by Ethiopian Airlines, into unrecoverable high-speed dives.


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Original Submission[5]

Read more of this story[6] at SoylentNews.

Links:
[1]: http://soylentnews.org/~upstart/ (link)
[2]: https://www.avweb.com/aviation-news/criminal-charges-coming-for-max-chief-technical-pilot/ (link)
[3]: https://www.wsj.com/articles/former-boeing-pilot-expected-to-face-prosecution-in-737-max-probe-11631845255?mod=hp_lead_pos3 (link)
[4]: https://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/criminal-indictment-imminent-for-former-boeing-737-max-chief-technical-pilot-report-says/?utm_source=marketingcloud (link)
[5]: http://soylentnews.org/submit.pl?op=viewsub&subid=51447 (link)
[6]: https://soylentnews.org/article.pl?sid=21/09/22/0759206&from=rss (link)



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