Hundreds of damning internal emails have revealed that Boeing employees knew about problems with the now-grounded 737 Max and even mocked the Federal Aviation Administration when they appeared to get away with covering those issues up.
Boeing released the trove internal messages on Thursday that raise serious questions about its development of simulators and the 737 MAX that was grounded in March after two fatal crashes.
In the messages, which were handed over to Congress and the FAA, Boeing employees talked about misleading regulators about problems with the simulators.
‘I still haven’t been forgiven by God for the covering up I did last year,’ one employee says in a 2018 message.
One employee also told a colleague they wouldn’t let their family ride on a 737 Max.
Boeing released the trove internal messages on Thursday that raise serious questions about its development of simulators and the 737 MAX that was grounded in March after two fatal crashes
‘Would you put your family on a Max simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn’t,’ one employee said to another colleague. The colleague responded: ‘No.’
In an April 2017 exchange of instant messages, two employees expressed complaints about the MAX following references to issues with the plane’s flight management computer.
‘This airplane is designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys,’ one employee wrote.
In one message dated November 2015, which appears to shed light on lobbying methods used when facing demands from regulators, a Boeing employee notes regulators were likely to want simulator training for a particular type of cockpit alert.
‘We are going to push back very hard on this and will likely need support at the highest levels when it comes time for the final negotiation,’ the employee writes.
In the messages, employees also groused about Boeing’s senior management, the company’s selection of low-cost suppliers and wasting money.
Names of the employees who wrote the emails and text messages were redacted.
Boeing, who went into damage control, said it was considering disciplinary action against some employees over the message exchanges.
The Max has been grounded worldwide since March, after two crashes that killed 346 people. Pictured above is the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March last year. Boeing is still working to update software and other systems on the plane to convince regulators to let it fly again
‘Some of these communications relate to the development and qualification of Boeing’s MAX simulators in 2017 and 2018. These communications contain provocative language, and, in certain instances, raise questions about Boeing’s interactions with the FAA in connection with the simulator qualification process,’ a statement from the company said.
‘Having carefully reviewed the issue, we are confident that all of Boeing’s MAX simulators are functioning effectively. The qualification activities referenced in these communications occurred early in the service life of these simulators. Since that time, both internal and external subject matter experts have repeatedly tested and qualified the simulators at issue.
‘These communications do not reflect the company we are and need to be, and they are completely unacceptable. That said, we remain confident in the regulatory process for qualifying these simulators.’
The Max has been grounded worldwide since March, after two crashes that killed 346 people.
Boeing is still working to update software and other systems on the plane to convince regulators to let it fly again.
The work has taken much longer than Boeing expected.
An FAA spokesman said the agency found no new safety risks that have not already been identified as part of the FAA’s review of changes that Boeing is making to the plane.
Boeing is still working to update software and other systems on the plane to convince regulators to let it fly again. The work has taken much longer than Boeing expected
The spokesman, Lynn Lunsford, said the simulator mentioned in the documents has been checked three times in the last six months.
‘Any potential safety deficiencies identified in the documents have been addressed,’ he said in a statement.
A lawmaker leading one of the congressional investigations into Boeing called them ‘incredibly damning.’
‘They paint a deeply disturbing picture of the lengths Boeing was apparently willing to go to in order to evade scrutiny from regulators, flight crews, and the flying public, even as its own employees were sounding alarms internally,’ said Rep. Peter DeFazio, D-Ore., chairman of the House Transportation Committee.
DeFazio said the documents detail ‘some of the earliest and most fundamental errors in the decisions that went into the fatally flawed aircraft.’
DeFazio and other critics have accused the company of putting profit over safety.
The grounding of the Max will cost the company billions in compensation to families of passengers killed in the crashes and airlines that canceled thousands of flights.
Last month, the company ousted its CEO and decided to temporarily halt production of the plane in mid-January, a decision that is rippling out through its supplier network.