A senior Democratic member of the U.S. House of Representatives said Friday that the lawsuit against the former chief technology test pilot of the Boeing 737MAX should not be the end of an investigation into the two fatal crashes that killed 346 people.
Rep. Peter de Fazio, chairman of the U.S. Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, said: "The top leaders of the entire Boeing company are responsible for the culture of concealment that eventually led to the crash of the 737 MAX plane, resulting in the deaths of 346 innocent people. ”
Mark Forkner, 49, was indicted by a Texas grand jury on six counts of "conspiracy to defraud Boeing's airline customers in the United States into tens of millions of dollars for the aircraft maker." ”
Pictured, Rep. Peter de Fazio
De Fazio argues: "The prosecution of Mark Faulkner should not be the end of responsibility for this great and tragic failure. Boeing did not immediately comment. Faulkner's lawyers also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
On October 15, the U.S. Attorney's Office in North Texas said that a former chief technology pilot of Boeing was charged with fraud, and although he refused to plead guilty, he was subsequently released. The pilot was accused of "defrauding federal regulators while evaluating the Boeing 737 MAX airliner."
Mark Faulkner appeared before the U.S. magistrate in federal court in Fort Worth with his hands clasped in front of him. After Faulkner was released, he walked out of the courthouse with his wife and lawyer.
Faulkner provided the Federal Aviation Administration's (FAA) Aircraft Evaluation Team with "critically erroneous, inaccurate, and incomplete information" about a new part of the Boeing 737 MAX flight control system, also known as the Maneuverability Enhancement System (MCAS), according to the indictment.
MCAS is an automatic safety system used in 737 MAX aircraft designed to prevent aircraft stalls. The system automatically pushes the nose of the aircraft downwards under certain conditions. It is also closely related to two 737 MAX crashes. The FAA grounded the 737 MAX for 18 months, and the ban was lifted in November 2020.
Defence attorney David Gerger said: "Everyone affected by this tragedy should seek the truth, not a scapegoat. If the government puts the case to trial, the truth will show that Mark did not cause the tragedy, that Mark did not lie, and that Mark should not be prosecuted. ”
David Gege said: "I want to make a request to everyone who knows the truth, you may have worked for Boeing, the Federal Aviation Administration or other airlines, and now is the time to help the truth come out." So contact us and don't be afraid. The trial is supposed to be about finding the truth, so let Mark's trial be the search for the truth, not the scapegoat.
The Daily Mail reported in October 2019 that Boeing's former chief technical pilot complained to airlines about the 737 MAX years ago and claimed he was pressured by management to ensure pilots didn't need expensive training.
Faulkner had told colleagues that he was concerned about the 737 MAX aircraft after problems arose in the simulator. It was he who persuaded the FAA not to need additional training before allowing MAX pilots to fly the plane. The president of southwest airlines' pilots association said: "Boeing misled pilots ... About the Security of the 737MAX".
The Wall Street Journal also reported that they asked pilot Faulkner in 2016 and 2017 to successfully convince the Federal Aviation Administration that it didn't need additional simulator lessons before allowing MAX pilots to fly passengers.
The Financial Times reported that before the crash, American pilots only had 1-3 hours of flight training on iPads. At the time, only Air Canada in all of North America had a Boeing 737 MAX simulator. A representative of a large U.S. pilots union said. The issue of training is sensitive, and most pilots simply didn't know there was MCAS before the crash.
The U.S. Congress approved a bill to reform the way the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) certifies new aircraft. De Fazio said the FAA must immediately work to implement the bipartisan legislation.
In September 2020, De Fazio said in a report that the MAX crash was a terrible consequence of a series of false technical assumptions by Boeing engineers, a lack of transparency in Boeing's management, and a serious lack of FAA regulation.
In March 2019, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed, killing all 157 people on board, which directly led to the global grounding of the 737 MAX.
Robert Clifford, a lawyer representing the families of the Ethiopian air crash victims, said the indictment against Faulkner was "a whitewash ... This unforgivable corporate greed extends far beyond [Faulkner] companies that build these planes at will in order to increase profits. ”
In January, Boeing agreed to pay more than $2.5 billion in fines and damages after Boeing and the U.S. Department of Justice reached an agreement to extend the lawsuit over the MAX crash. The 737 MAX crash cost Boeing more than $20 billion (about 128.6 billion yuan).