BA Boeing Co

By Andy Pasztor and Alison Sider 

Boeing Co. released internal communications that show employees displaying a cavalier attitude toward safety, ridiculing regulators and some airline officials.

The messages revealed how employees persuaded -- and in some cases tried to trick -- airline and government officials to conclude that flight simulator training wasn't necessary for the 737 MAX.

Most of the 150 pages of documents were turned over to federal prosecutors months ago, according to industry and government officials, and Boeing subsequently sent them to the Federal Aviation Administration and to House and Senate committees just before Christmas.

The FAA said nothing in the messages pointed to any new safety risks that hadn't been identified.

Many documents date from 2017 and 2018 when Boeing was working on 737 MAX flight simulators. Some exchanges go back as far as 2013, when the plane was in development.

The material was made public Thursday, two days after Boeing said it would recommend additional simulator training for pilots when regulators clear the MAX to fly again, reversing its prior position that computer-based learning would suffice.

The contents, mainly exchanges between company pilots and staff involved in the MAX simulator, are likely to ratchet up further criticism of Boeing on Capitol Hill and elsewhere.

The material comes in the wake of months of escalating congressional criticism of Boeing's initial design of the MAX, which has been grounded world-wide since March following a pair of deadly plane crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia.

A smaller batch of similar messages, some involving the same Boeing staff, were released in October and prompted angry responses from lawmakers, who argued it pointed to major lapses in the plane maker's safety culture.

The belated release of those earlier documents to the FAA riled U.S. regulators. Boeing's deteriorating relationship with the FAA contributed to the ouster of then-Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg late last year.

Senior FAA officials were concerned that the latest batch of messages implied that some Boeing employees were willing to sacrifice safety features to avoid simulator training. Those officials decided against releasing the messages earlier because the agency is considering potential enforcement actions against some of the individuals named in the documents, these officials said.

"While the tone and content of some of the language contained in the documents is disappointing, the FAA remains focused on following a thorough process for returning the Boeing 737 MAX to passenger service," the agency said.

Boeing said some of the communications relate to the development and approval of its MAX simulators in 2017 and 2018 and use "provocative language." They raise questions about Boeing's interactions with the FAA in connection with the simulator-qualification process.

"These communications do not reflect the company we are and need to be, and they are completely unacceptable," the company said. "We regret the content of these communications, and apologize to the FAA, Congress, our airline customers, and to the flying public for them."

Boeing said it hadn't covered up anything and that it was confident that all MAX simulators are functioning effectively.

Boeing said it released the documents at the urging of Congressional leaders.

Rep. Peter DeFazio (D., Ore.), chairman of the House Transportation Committee, described the newly released emails as "incredibly damning."

"They paint a deeply disturbing picture of the lengths Boeing was apparently willing to go to in order to evade scrutiny from regulators, flight crews, and the flying public, even as its own employees were sounding alarms internally."

Write to Andy Pasztor at andy.pasztor@wsj.com and Alison Sider at alison.sider@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

January 09, 2020 22:48 ET (03:48 GMT)

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