Recently published emails between employees at Boeing revealed that the company dissuaded Lion Air from training pilots that would fly the 737 Max aircraft in Boeing’s simulators. Lion Air Flight 610, which was a 737 Max, crashed in October 2018, killing all passengers on board.
According to a report by Forbes, employees at Boeing encouraged officials at the Indonesian Airline Lion Air to forego simulator tests for the 737 Max fleet, an aircraft that many airlines, including Lion Air, were preparing to use for commercial flights.
In a series of messages published this week, Boeing’s 737 Chief Technical Pilot Mark Forkner wrote that pilots would not need simulator training to fly a 737 Max. Forkner said he would even battle with regulators that might want to make 737 Max simulator training mandatory.
“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,” Forkner wrote in one message.
In another message, this time to Lion Air, Forkner encouraged the airline to forego simulator training. “I am concerned that if [Lion] chooses to require a MAX simulator for its pilots beyond what all other regulators are requiring that it 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,” Forkner said his message to Lion Air.
Forkner wasn’t the only Boeing employee that didn’t want Lion Air to participate in 737 Max simulator training. One unnamed Boeing employee said that Lion Air would only need simulator training for the new fleet of aircraft because of their “stupidity.”
“Now [Lion Air] might need a sim to fly the MAX, and maybe because of their own stupidity,” the employee wrote.
Breitbart News has written extensively on Boeing’s tribulations with its 737 Max fleet. Breitbart News reported this week on internal messages from one Boeing employee who said that the 737 Max fleet was “designed by clowns.”
Stay tuned to Breitbart News for more updates on this story.
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