Internal Boeing Documents Show Cavalier Attitude to Safety
January 09 2020 - 11:03PM
Dow Jones News
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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