Boeing chief technical pilot couldn’t ‘Jedi mind trick’ his way out of a federal indictment
Boeing’s former chief technical pilot, Mark Forkner, was indicted on two counts of fraud and four counts of wire fraud for his role in the Boeing 737 Max debacle. He’s accused of withholding information from FAA evaluators about software on the Boeing 737 Max that was at the heart of two crashes that killed 346 people,
That software, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), interpreted the plane as stalling when it wasn’t — causing crashes. Rushed development of the 737 Max required larger, heavier engines that could make it susceptible to stalling in certain takeoff situations. To prevent that from happening, Boeing set up MCAS to automatically pitch the nose down. When the system activated erroneously, pilots were…
