Boeing is facing an intense backlash after the release of internal messages that revealed employees mocked regulators and admitted flaws in its troubled 737 Max jet that crashed twice in five months.
The unnamed employees criticised the latest update of Boeing’s workhorse aircraft, in messages released on Thursday that were discovered by the company last month and handed over to US regulators and lawmakers.
In one April 2017 exchange, an employee wrote: “This aeroplane is designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys.”
Boeing found the documents in December and provided them to the US Federal Aviation Administration and Congressional committees that are investigating the development and certification of the 737 Max. The aircraft crashed twice in five months over 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people and leading to a worldwide grounding.
“The language used in these communications, and some of the sentiments they express, are inconsistent with Boeing values, and the company is taking appropriate action in response,” the company said in a statement. “This will ultimately include disciplinary or other personnel action, once the necessary reviews are completed.”
Some of the messages from 2017 and 2018 focus on the development of simulators for the Max and suggest some employees may have concealed problems with the machines from the FAA.
“I still haven’t been forgiven by God for the covering up I did last year,” one of the employees said in a 2018 message.
The embarrassing disclosures come after the company reversed its position on Tuesday and recommended simulator training for pilots learning to fly the Max instead of relying on software programmes. Simulator training costs airlines hundreds of dollars an hour per pilot, and it can dissuade them from buying a new jet model.
The company said all its simulators were functioning effectively. A company official added that Boeing had “not found any instances of misrepresentations to the FAA in connection with its simulator qualification activities”.
The FAA said in a statement the messages were “disappointing” but that nothing “pointed to any safety risks that were not already identified as part of the ongoing review of proposed modifications to the aircraft”.
It said it would continue to focus “on following a thorough process for returning the Boeing 737 Max to passenger service”.
Peter DeFazio, the Democratic chairman of the House committee on transportation and infrastructure, lambasted the company. “These newly released emails are 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,” he said.
The submission to Congress includes more than 100 pages. In one message from March 2018, an employee, apparently unhappy after a meeting, wrote they were not sure “if I will be returning in April given this — am not lying to the FAA. Will leave that to people who have no integrity.”
“I’m sorry, that is not acceptable,” another employee responded. “Your integrity is priority 4.”
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