tdracer, thanks for correcting my previous over-statement about everyone knowing that increments to pilot training were to be relentlessly avoided. Without having been carried away by the apparent wrongness of the heave-ho of Forkner under the bus, it might have been accurate to state: to the extent it was an objective of the 737 MAX program as directed by senior management and the board to avoid any additional training of pilots if at all possible, this objective was widely known (in the company) and thought to be important. Even if not taken literally by everyone who worked on the program (as you point out).
A30 737 #38 - of course the federal government's media release invokes well-crafted, well-edited platitudes about the heavy responsibility of those who interact with regulatory authorities. If these pronouncements are smug, self-righteous and entirely consistent with the awesome power of the government to seek a criminal conviction in a court of law, so much the better.
As to #41 and the plea bargain the DOJ reached (technically a deferred prosecution agreement), reasonable minds may differ about whether the company received a massive and unwarranted pass, achieved by means of who-knows-what insider connections or otherwise.
There isn't much disagreement, as far as I have read, with regard to the fact that the functionality change in the MCAS system was something that Forkner had some obligation to make known to FAA. But that his failure to do so should be the stuff of a criminal prosecution? Well, everyone on this forum, presumably, completed secondary school, in which the main curriculum is learning to think for yourself.
tdracer said it best and that's why I'm repeating it here:
"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 . . .[.] 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."