Boeing employees mocked federal rules, talked about deceiving regulators and joked about potential flaws in the 737 Max as it was being developed, according to over a hundred pages of internal messages delivered Thursday to congressional investigators.
“I still haven’t been forgiven by God for the covering up I did last year,” one of the employees said in messages from 2018, apparently in reference to interactions with the Federal Aviation Administration.
The most damaging messages included conversations among Boeing pilots and other employees about software issues and other problems with flight simulators for the Max, a plane later involved in two accidents, in late 2018 and early 2019, that killed 346 people and threw the company into chaos.
“Would you put your family on a Max simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn’t,” one employee said to a colleague in another exchange from 2018, before the first crash. “No,” the colleague responded.
Boeing is also facing another PR nightmare after its plane was shot down in Iran in what has now been termed as human error by the Iranian government.
The Iran crash killed 176 people who were on board, kicking off a new nightmare for the plane maker.
Manuel von Ribbeck of Ribbeck Law Chartered, who currently represents more than 80 families of the Boeing 737 MAX crashes -JT610 and ET302, stated that “our deepest condolences to the families and friends of the passengers and crew who lost their lives in the crash of Ukraine International Airlines flight 752. We hope for a prompt identification of the bodies and return to their love ones.”
There is still no indication when the Max might be cleared to fly again, as the company and regulators continue to discover new potential flaws with the plane.
The messages threaten to further complicate Boeing’s tense relationship with the F.A.A. Both the company and agency indicated
Thursday that the messages raised no new safety concerns, but they echoed troubling internal communications among Boeing employees that were previously made public.
In several instances, Boeing employees insulted the F.A.A. officials reviewing the plane.
In an exchange from 2015, a Boeing employee said that a presentation the company gave to the F.A.A. was so complicated that, for the agency officials and even himself, “it was like dogs watching TV.”
Ribbeck law had previously expressed optimism that Boeing which now has a new CEO, was on the mend.
What happens in the days to come now remains to be seen.
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