![]() ![]() Leaked internal emails showed employees incredulous at the development of the Max 8, commenting, “This is a joke. Mark Forkner, Boeing’s chief technical pilot at the time of the aircraft’s development, called MCAS “egregious” and noted that it was “running rampant” in Boeing’s simulators, causing crashes. Moreover, Boeing knew of these dangers and concealed them from test pilots during the Max 8’s certification. Black box recordings of the pilots bear this out, as they tried to pull up or disable MCAS during the last moments of their lives. This is exactly what happened in both crashes each plane’s angle of attack sensor wrongly indicated a stall and because only a single sensor was tied to MCAS, rather than the industry standard of two or three for redundancy to prevent such problems, the software forced both flights into an unrecoverable dive. Moreover, Boeing ultimately gave MCAS ten times the control over the pitch of the plane than it told test pilots, meaning it could easily crash the plane given faulty inputs. The software was installed to compensate for the plane’s inherent tendency to stall, a potentially catastrophic problem which still remains, and was given the authority to override pilot controls if the system deemed it necessary. To review, the immediate cause of both crashes was the previously little-known mechanism called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). ![]() Calhoun shed crocodile tears for the victims, proclaiming, “We will never forget the lives lost in the two tragic accidents that led to the decision to suspend operation.” But no one took stock of the fact that Boeing knew of the dangers posed by the plane and hid them from pilots and the general public, all the while getting a rubber stamp to proceed from the FAA and the pilots’ union. The agency claims it worked “diligently to identify and address the safety issues” surrounding the hardware and software that were the direct cause of the two crashes. The order also revealed the continued complicity of the FAA with the corporate criminality of Boeing. These include updated hardware and software and a new pilot training regimen that has yet to be approved, as well as maintenance for the 850 aircraft that have been sitting idle for more than a year and a half. Alongside the announcement, the FAA also released the design changes that will need to be implemented on each aircraft before it is approved for airworthiness. ![]() The FAA action is the last major hurdle needed for the Max 8 jet to return to service in US airlines. ![]()
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