‘Designed by clowns’: Boeing emails reveal cover-ups in 737 Max development

‘There will not be any type of simulator training required … Boeing will not allow that to happen,’ wrote a senior pilot

“Designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys” – that was the view of the 737 Max from one Boeing employee in 2017.

The comment, whose writer also describes the plane as “p*** poor,” is among hundreds of emails and text messages released to regulators and the US congress. They provide shocking evidence of Boeing’s efforts to keep the costs of the 737 Max down by dissuading airlines that simulator training would be needed.

The twin-jet has been grounded for 10 months since the crash of Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 on 10 March 2019. All 157 passengers and crew died after the pilots lost a battle against new flight control software that was forcing the nose of the plane down.

The software, known as MCAS, was also implicated in the first crash of a Boeing 737 Max in October 2018. All 189 people were killed aboard a Lion Air jet that crashed shortly after take off from the Indonesian capital, Jakarta.

Now Boeing has published more than 100 pages of text messages and emails provided to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and US congress investigators. They reveal a concerted campaign to deflect calls for flight simulator training.

In a bid to keep costs down, the planemaker presented the differences between the Boeing 737 Max and the previous “NG” version of the jet as minor – with a short tablet-based exercise all that pilots required.

As the new plane was developed, one email read: “If we emphasise MCAS is a new function there may be greater certification and training impact.”

One pilot, whose identity has been redacted, wrote: “I want to stress the importance of holding firm that there will not be any type of simulator training required to transition from NG to Max.

“Boeing will not allow that to happen. We’ll go face-to-face with any regulator who tries to make that a requirement.”

The same individual is thought to have glossed over the existence of MCAS in an email to an airline, writing: “Once the engines are started, there is only one difference between NG and Max procedurally, and that is that there is no ‘off’ position of the gear handle.

“Boeing does not understand what is to be gained by a three-hour simulator session, when the procedures are essentially the same.”

When the airline accepted this assertion, the pilot wrote to a colleague: “Looks like my Jedi mind trick worked again!”

The colleague responded: “Haha, I’ll send you to negotiate peace in the Middle East next.”

When an Asian airline asked for simulator training, it was told that the demand “will be creating a difficult and unnecessary training burden for your airline, as well as potentially establish a precedent in your region for other Max customers”.

Boeing announced this week that it was recommending simulator training for all 737 Max pilots as the jet returns to service.

The internal communications also reveal concerns expressed, often with dark humour, by employees involved with the Boeing 737 Max. One wrote in 2018: ”I haven’t been forgiven by God for the covering up I did last night.”

Peter DeFazio, Republican chair of the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, said: “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.

“Our investigation has uncovered multiple, serious problems with Boeing’s decision-making and the priority that was placed on production and profit over safety.

“But these new emails bring my concerns to an entirely new level. They show a coordinated effort dating back to the earliest days of the 737 Max programme to conceal critical information from regulators and the public.”

Mr DeFazio has demanded an interview with the former Boeing 737 Max chief technical pilot Mark Forkner. In 2015, after a simulator exercise, he complained in a message to a colleague that MCAS was “running rampant in the sim on me”.

Boeing handed over the latest documents in December 2019, shortly before its chief executive, Dennis Muilenberg, was sacked.

The company said: “These communications do not reflect the company we are and need to be, and they are completely unacceptable.

“We regret the content of these communications, and apologise to the FAA, congress, our airline customers, and to the flying public for them.

“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.

“This will ultimately include disciplinary or other personnel action, once the necessary reviews are completed.”

Many airlines, including Ryanair, United and Southwest, are not expecting to be flying the Boeing 737 Max before the summer.