Thomson Reuters
- Faulty software caused two Boeing 737 Max planes to crash in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people.
- A Thursday DOJ statement said Mark Forkner allegedly deceived the FAA during its assessment of the plane.
- 737 Max pilots were not sufficiently aware of the software as a result, the statement said.
A former senior Boeing pilot was charged with fraud for allegedly deceiving the Federal Aviation Authority during its assessment of the 737 Max aircraft, whose faulty software led to two deadly crashes, the Justice Department said in a Thursday statement.
A total of 346 people died when two 737 Max planes crashed in October 2018 and March 2019. At the time, Boeing said the cause of the tragedies was a faulty software known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System.
MCAS was designed to automatically push the plane's nose down to keep it stable if it detects a stall, but investigators found that it could misfire because of faulty data from a sensor, forcing the plane into an unstoppable dive.
On Thursday, Mark Forkner, Boeing's 737 Max's chief technical pilot, was charged with two counts of fraud and four counts of wire fraud, the DOJ statement said. This is the first criminal prosecution in the two Boeing crashes.
"In and around November 2016, Forkner discovered information about an important change to MCAS," the US Attorney's Office in the northern district of Texas wrote.
"Rather than sharing information about this change with the FAA AEG [Aircraft Evaluation Group] Forkner allegedly intentionally withheld this information and deceived the FAA AEG about MCAS."
The indictment went on to say that Forkner, who was allegedly trying to save Boeing money, didn't sufficiently inform the FAA about MCAS, and the software was therefore not sufficiently addressed in pilot-training materials.
"Forkner allegedly abused his position of trust by intentionally withholding critical information about MCAS during the FAA evaluation and certification of the 737 MAX," assistant Attorney General Kenneth A. Polite Jr. said.
"He deprived airlines and pilots from knowing crucial information about an important part of the airplane's flight controls."
If Forkner is convicted, he faces a maximum 20 years in prison on each count of wire fraud and 10 years in prison on each count of fraud, the DOJ statement said.
Boeing did not immediately respond to Insider's request for comment.
In October 2018, a Boeing 737 Max operated by the Indonesian airline Lion Air crashed into the Java Sea, killing all 189 people on board.
Five months later, a further 157 people died when a 737 Max operated by Ethiopian Airlines crashed in Bishoftu, Ethiopia, six minutes after taking off.
Boeing CEO Denis Muilenburg apologized in a video about a month after the Ethiopian Airlines crash, and dozens of airlines grounded their Boeing 737 Max planes worldwide as a result.
Boeing scrambled to salvage the plane's reputation in the aftermath, and both Boeing and the FAA were served with a number of lawsuits in following months, from victims' families, pilots, and shareholders.
A lawyer representing more than 70 families affected by the Lion Air crash told Insider's Sinéad Baker earlier this year that the families' cases against Boeing were running "at least a year behind" due to the pandemic.
The 737 Max began flying again in 2021.
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