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Criminal Charges Coming For MAX Chief Technical Pilot:
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 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, 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.
(Score: 5, Informative) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Wednesday September 22 2021, @10:42PM (1 child)
In this case, yes. The QA rep is supposed to be the last line of defense against corporate shenanigans. The aero suppliers seeking to certify their products with the FAA or the EASA is required to hire someone under threat of penal sanction (sometimes decades after they left the company) and it's well understood that this person is impervious to pressure because they value their freedom more than their job. That person is also royally paid to do that job under such threat, and that too is well understood. I was a QA engineer and I was offered that job, and I can tell you it didn't take me more than 5 seconds to refuse it right here and there. You have to be supremely confident in your abilities to do that job and I sure as hell wasn't.
You could argue that corporations would behave better if the same sort of circumstances was applied to their officers: if they risked jail time personally, a lot of them would think twice before making rash decisions that hurt society or the environment, and the shareholders be damned. And there would be a real justification for their revolting salaries for a change.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 24 2021, @05:16AM
How they handle this:
Hire more QA people
Lay off the ones who won't play ball.