Monday, 23 May 2022:
https://www.air101.co.uk/2022/05/were-boeing-and-southwest-airlines.html
The Seattle Times newspaper is reporting that legal papers filed recently indicate
that Southwest Airlines manager Bill Lusk asked officials at Boeing,
including the 737 MAX chief technical pilot Mark Forkner, if engineers could install
the then-new 'Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System'
flight-control safety alert required for the MAX
On a single one of Southwest’s older 737s — and then deactivate it once the MAX
was certified.
According to the papers, the only reason for this proposal was for Boeing to tell the
FAA that the alert was not new on the MAX so that it wouldn’t trigger costly
additional pilot training that Southwest was focused on avoiding.
“It’s hard to come up with any reason for that other than to deceive the FAA,”
said Mary Schiavo, former U.S. Department of Transportation Inspector General
and advocate for airline safety. “It’s really appalling.”
Southwest and Boeing seem to have colluded in pilot training and the low-cost
carrier got its way according to the report. It 737 NG pilots were able to upgrade
to fly the 737 MAX jets after doing a simple three-hour course on a tablet computer.
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https://www.forbes.com/sites/lorenthompson/2022/04/29/americas-future-in-aerospace-still-rides-on-boeing-wings-washington-should-be-worried/
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