Posted on 09/09/2019 11:30:23 AM PDT by CondoleezzaProtege
A former Boeing official who played a key role in the development of the 737 MAX has refused to provide documents sought by federal prosecutors investigating two fatal crashes of the jetliner, citing his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination...
Mark Forkner, Boeing’s chief technical pilot on the MAX project, invoked the privilege in response to a grand jury subpoena issued by U.S. Justice Department prosecutors looking into the design and certification of the plane, the person said.
Invoking the Fifth to avoid testifying, while a legal right, is sometimes interpreted as an admission of guilt. Its use to resist a subpoena for documents is less common and may only imply a dance between prosecutors and defense attorneys, legal experts say.
Forkner, now a first officer for Southwest Airlines, referred questions to his attorney when reached by phone. His attorney, David Gerger, of Houston, did not respond to inquiries.
Justice Department spokesman Peter Carr declined to comment. Boeing also declined to comment.
The MCAS system, designed to move a powerful control surface at the tail to push the airplane’s nose down in certain rare situations, played a critical role in the crashes when the planes nose-dived out of the sky.
During the certification process, Forkner suggested to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) that MCAS not be included in the pilot manual...
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.com ...
There is ZERO chance people in Boeing did not engage in criminal activity getting the version of this plane certified... Those that think otherwise are fools.
There are people in that organization that should be facing 350+ charges of second degree murder.
I don’t hold out hope it will happen, but it should.
“Those that think otherwise are fools.”
Nice. The above statement is right out of the Liberal playbook.
“Those that think - CLIMATE CHANGE isn’t real - are fools.”
Just name the law broken and list the evidence you have. You must have it seeing you are so willing to label anyone who doesn’t believe you a fool.
Don’t get the propensity for people on these boards to defend Deep State Boeing (an organiation that donated 10 million dollars to Obama Library!) ...even former Boeing employees vouch for how corrupt the company has become.
“Invoking the Fifth to avoid testifying, while a legal right, is sometimes interpreted as an admission of guilt.”
That’s not fair
“There is ZERO chance people in Boeing did not engage in criminal activity getting the version of this plane certified...”
Posting while chewing may be a crime?
Make the "retirement" and full cooperation of the reluctant witness a condition, but the sooner this is sorted out, the better. Boeing is our largest exporter, as well as a major factor in our own aviation potential.
(In the interests of full disclosure, I acknowledge that I am a Boeing shareholder.)
When you work on a program like that you are NOT the owner of the paperwork, the company is.
And you can’t then ‘plead the 5th’ by not handing it over.
I don’t understand this. They can’t ask you to come on the stand and testify against yourself, but if you sent paperwork or email... get it from the other side.
Did he write a letter to himself saying “gosh i sure did something illegal here”
You are absolutely right. I dont understand what’s being subpoenaed that an employee would have in their possession that the company does not.
“Invoking the Fifth to avoid testifying, while a legal right, is sometimes interpreted as an admission of guilt.”
That’s not fair
It’s a fair statement. How many times have we seen deepstaters take the fifth in the past 2 years?
EVERYONE has the right to remain silent; it exists to protect the innocent.
One big violation is the FAA buying off on the FADEC engine control system. All FADEC does is protect Pratt and Whitney’s engine warranty. FADEC system prevents the pilots acquiring max power from the engines in an emergency. Listen to the sound of the B747 augering in after departure from Bagram a while back, sounds like the engines were providing 75% power while trying to recover.
Working on safety systems requires the adherence to strict design & test processes. The design that was put into production wouldn’t pass the scrutiny of a mid-level engineer - let alone all the more senior level engineers that would also have had to sign off on it. The testing was equally flawed, they’re required to generate a failure matrix and test everything that can fail or produce erroneous data and have a test for it. Where’s these tests? What were the results? There’s no way engineering didn’t make a fuss over what they were going to produce.
Unless their entire engineering staff are completely incompetent, which I don’t believe for a single second, then the only other answer is that they were ordered to do what they knew was wrong.
I’ve been waiting for this to become criminal. There’s really no other explanation. It doesn’t matter if you’re found to be ignorant, lazy, or incompetent you’re still subject to the consequences. If found to be deliberate, because of money, then you’re in a whole load more trouble.
The second I heard about “single sensor designs” (you really need three) and “were already working on a software fix” all kinds of alarm bells went off. They already knew what could go wrong and didn’t ground the fleet.
Sure, the evidence needs to be laid out but I’d be surprised if somebody doesn’t go to prison.
“One big violation is the FAA buying off on the FADEC engine control system. All FADEC does is protect Pratt and Whitney’s engine warranty.”
1. Just relying on my memory, I can’t think of any jet aircraft being made today that doesn’t have FADEC. I love FADEC. It makes engine management much easier.
2. The Boeing 737 Max doesn’t have Pratt and Whitney engines. It has CFM International Leap-1B engines.
Thing's that I personally witness, that cost them untold amount's of money, (probably millions) assembly Line stoppage Everett plant, having to do with mounting 747 wings, to main body section. Also cost a manger & a couple of supervisor's their job's. It's all most IMPOSSIBLE to get fired from Boeing.
Something, I had a DIRECT relationship to, was the fact that the very first 747-400 left the assembly plant, with the 2nd (second) set of wing's. The first set were SCRAPED, because I was taught to check the paper work to make sure the previous work was "STAMPED AS COMPLETED!!!"
I was a "Body Section Painter." (Other than the Wings, almost all of what I painted, would be seen by mechanics / Pilots only.) I had just painted one (of the set of two) of the 1st (first) set of wings, and before I would stamp my work as complete, I checked to see that all prior worked was "STAMPED," as required, turn's out the "SPAR{s}" {the main structural parts (think foundation of a house, spars are the foundation of wings) of the wing, i.e., front & back} were not stamped for "STRESS RELIEF" (THINK STRESS RELIEF AS EITHER SAND BLASTING, OR BEAD BLASTING.) The company trying to catch back up to where they thought production should have been at, took a couple of day's to investigate the stress relief, ultimately they SCRAPED the first set of wings, i.e., Left & Right sides. I would argue, that the wings when painted by me, are / were at the 70 percent plus, stage of completion. Not cheap to throw into the garbage by any means, again I'm thinking MILLION'S.
Get in the driver seat: see how our Long Load Crew moves spars & stringers over 30 meters (98.425197 Feet) long for our Boeing 777, 767, and 747.
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