Boeing expresses regret over release of ex-pilot’s damning messages about 737 MAX software linked to two fatal crashes
- Messages from 2016 say the MCAS anti-stall system – the same one linked to crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia – was ‘running rampant’ in a flight simulator session
Boeing Co said on Sunday that it regrets and understands concerns raised by the release of a former Boeing test pilot’s internal instant messages noting erratic software behaviour two years before deadly crashes of its 737 MAX jet.
The world’s largest planemaker, plunged into a fresh crisis over the safety of the banned 737 MAX after Reuters reported the messages on Friday, also said it was investigating the “circumstances of this exchange” and regretted the difficulties that the release of messages presented for the US Federal Aviation Administration.
The FAA on Friday ordered Boeing Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg to give an “immediate” explanation for the delay in turning over the “concerning” document, which Boeing discovered some months ago.
In the messages from November 2016, then-chief technical pilot Mark Forkner tells a colleague the so-called MCAS anti-stall system – the same one linked to deadly crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia – was “running rampant” in a flight simulator session.
At another point he says: “I basically lied to the regulators (unknowingly).”
