Mark Forkner, a former Boeing test pilot, was found not guilty Wednesday of defrauding the Federal Aviation Administration. File Photo by John Angelillo/UPI |
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March 24 (UPI) -- A jury in Texas has acquitted a former Boeing test pilot of defrauding federal regulators about a software issue connected to two deadly crashes of the U.S. manufacturer's 737 Max aircraft.
Federal prosecutors charged Mark Forkner, 50, in October with four counts of wire fraud and two counts of fraud involving aircraft parts over withholding information from the Federal Aviation Administration to defraud Boeing's U.S.-based airline customers of tens of millions of dollars for his employer.
Forkner was found not guilty by a jury in a Fort Worth district court room on Wednesday after deliberating for less than two hours in the four-day trial.
"We had a great team and great client -- and thank heavens for our independent, smart, fair judge and jury," Forkner's lawyer, David Gerger said in a statement, The New York Times reported. "They made all the difference."
Prosecutors had accused Forkner, the 737 Max's technical pilot, of not informing the FAA about an issue he discovered with the aircraft's Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System software in 2016 over fears doing so would require new training for the aircraft, which would cause Boeing to incur millions of dollars in costs.
The MCAS was supposed to prevent the nose of the 737 Max from pitching during a specific and rarely conducted flight maneuver required to achieve certification.
The aircraft was grounded worldwide for nearly two years after two deadly crashes separated by five months: the first in late 2018 in Indonesia killing all 189 people on board and the second in Ethiopia in 2019 that resulted in the deaths of all 157 on board.
Investigators believe the MCAS pushed the both planes into a nose-dive shortly after take off.
The 737 Max has been back in service for more than a year.
Forkner is the first person the United States has charged in connection with the crashes, and Boeing in January of last year reached a $2.5 billion settlement with the Justice Department related to charges that it conspired to defraud the FAA.
