A federal grand jury has indicted Boeing’s former Chief Technical Pilot for deceiving the FAA during the certification process of the 737Max.
The indictment alleges that 49-year-old Mark Forkner also schemed to defraud Boeing’s U.S.-based airline customers out of tens of millions of dollars for the company.
It finds Forkner provided “materially false, inaccurate, and incomplete information” to the FAA about a new flight control system on the Max jets.
That kept information about the system out of pilot training manuals and affected airlines’ decision-making when they bought the aircraft.
The system is blamed for two deadly crashes of 737Max jets overseas.
Forkner is expected to make an initial court appearance today, Friday October 15th, in Texas where he currently lives.
The charges against him carry a possible maximum sentence of 80 years in prison.