WillowRun 6-3
I agree that Forkner is not alone in this - others are going to be dragged in (interesting to see high how up that goes). It wasn't Forkner's responsibility to educate the FAA about the existence of MCAS, or to inform them that the functionality changed late in the program (although it's unforgivable if he intentionally withheld the info from the FAA when he found out). Some AR in flight controls had that responsibility - and he/she has a lot to answer for (that being said, I have it on good authority that there were attempted suicides among the 737 flight controls community in the aftermath of the second crash - although I have no idea how connected they were to the compliance activities or even the design aspect of MCAS). Discovery is going to be interesting - there will be volumes of emails and Coord Sheets that have nothing to do with Forkner. Further, it's unforgivable that Forkner apparently discovered the change in MCAS by accident - again someone in flight controls should have made sure that the Chief Pilot knew all about any flight control changes.
Originally Posted by
WillowRun 6-3
Everyone working on MAX knew additional training was stridently, relentlessly to be avoided, prevented. And who owns, within the massive corporate bean-counting machine, the decisions about that component of the 737 MAX aircraft program?
That's not entirely true. Shortly after the second MAX crash, I ran into a Boeing Experimental Test pilot at an event - a friend that I'd known and worked with for for years . Of course the MAX came up - he'd been involved in the MAX flight testing, and he told me more about it than I could repeat at the time (most - but not all - of which is now out in the public domain). He explained to me why an MCAS failure was considered to be no worse than Major - basically that they expected that if the stab trim started doing something unexpected the crew would turn it off. But he also said that it was assumed by all involved that the pilots would be informed/trained on the existence of MCAS, and what to do if it malfunctioned.