(Washington) A former Boeing test pilot, who was accused of having deceived the American air regulator during the certification of the 737 – which had two fatal accidents – and was the only individual personally prosecuted in this case, was acquitted on Wednesday.
Posted at 7:55 p.m.
A jury in a court in Fort Worth, near Dallas, found Mark Forkner not guilty. He had been charged by US authorities in November.
His lawyer, David Gerger, hailed “an independent, intelligent and fair judge and jury”, in a statement sent to AFP.
Boeing had already acknowledged its responsibility for the manipulation of the authorities and agreed in January 2021 to pay more than 2.5 billion dollars to settle certain lawsuits related to the accidents of a Lion Air aircraft in October 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines in March. 2019, which had killed 346 people.
The aeronautical giant then admitted that two of its employees had misled the American aviation supervisory agency, the FAA.
According to prosecution documents, Mr. Forkner had discovered in 2016 a major change made to a Boeing 737 MAX flight control software, MCAS, which was supposed to prevent the plane from diving and was involved in both crushes.
In a message to a colleague revealed in 2019, he notably indicated that the software made the plane difficult to fly in a simulator.
But he deliberately chose not to share all the information with the regulator, who had consequently not required a reference in pilot training at MCAS.
Two of the six charges initially presented by the authorities had been dismissed by the judge in February.
Mr. Forkner remained accused of having sought to mislead the customers of Boeing American Airlines and Southwest Airlines by not presenting them with all the information available when they finalized their order, in particular on the training required, in order not to lose money to Boeing.
Just after his indictment, a lawyer for the former Boeing pilot had called not to make him a “scapegoat”.
Contacted by AFP, Boeing declined to comment.