Former Boeing Tech Pilot Found Not Guilty in 737 Max Case

Meg Godlewski

Thursday, March 24, 2022 at 08:29 AM ET

Verified

The FAA certified the 737 Max in 2017. [Courtesy: Boeing]

Key Takeaways:

A former Boeing pilot, Mark Forkner, was acquitted on all four counts of wire fraud, having been accused of deceiving the FAA about the 737 Max's flight control system (MCAS) linked to two fatal crashes.
Prosecutors alleged Forkner misled an FAA representative about the pilot training required for the MCAS, while his defense argued he was a scapegoat and unaware of all software changes made by engineers.
The jury found "very little evidence" of intentional deception by Forkner, with one juror suggesting it was "more a corporate and regulatory failure of communication."

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A jury has found a former Boeing pilot not guilty of deceiving the FAA about an issue with the 737 Max flight control system blamed for two fatal crashes.

Late Wednesday, a Texas jury acquitted 50-year-old Mark Forkner, of Keller, Texas, on all four counts of wire fraud stemming from accusations that in his role as chief technical pilot during the development of the 737 Max, he mislead an FAA representative about the amount of training pilots for the 737 Max would need to operate the maneuvering characteristics augmentation system (MCAS), an automation feature. The MCAS is software that lessens the need for pilot input during flight.