Originally Posted by
Speed of Sound
Surely any official documents including emails, from Mr Forkner’s employment as Chief Technical Pilot belong to Boeing and are not his to withhold.
They must have asked for personal docs, or just possibly asked for his copy of Boeing docs (including any that Boeing might have accidentally failed to locate, or accidentally located downstream of the shredder) but with the request phrased in a way that backs him into a corner. Note that (at least contractually) he very probably shouldn't still
have any personal copies of Boeing docs, so even that admission
might justify pleading the 5th, but relying on the company to provide evidence to back you once you've left is a bit precarious so many people
do keep copies of stuff, just in case.
There is also this:
anxious about the deadlines and pressures faced in the MAX program, going to some of his peers in the piloting world for help
They might, since that was in a public press report, have simply asked for details of all such communications, which could well incriminate him in all sorts of ways - not least that he may have discussed commercial or technical stuff outside of the company without permission.
Then of course there is the timing of the request and why the heck he was asking the FAA to hide something because it was "benign and rarely used" in the middle of a change to make it four times as powerful and much more frequently used, a change which they then apparently forgot to report to the FAA. Now, there might be really really good reasons for that, it might not actually be what it looks like, but do you really want to be trying to justify it in front of a jury who have just spent a few hours looking at pictures of smoking craters and floating wreckage? I suspect his lawyers have advised that STFU now and cooperate when they've given you immunity is a much better strategy.
The $$$$$$ question is of course:
what has he got ?
Also from Chief Technical Pilot at Boeing to a FO at Southwest? Something doesn’t smell right here.
My first thoughts too, but I did check out at LinkedIn and it seems he was 737-FO then went to FAA and then Boeing in what look like more management roles, now back to 737-FO - not impossible that he just didn't enjoy those other roles as much as flying. Looks like he left Boeing in July 2018, about when MAX was at peak success, so not jumping off a sinking ship, more likely some bean counter saying "why do we still need a 737 Chief Technical Pilot - it's all done, we now just have to keep cranking them out and cutting cost wherever we can".