Ex-Boeing 737 MAX chief technical pilot indicted for fraud
15 Oct 2021
Boeing (NYSE:BA) Co is trading down 1.96% at 217.44
A former chief technical pilot for Boeing (NYSE:BA) Co was charged with fraud on Thursday for deceiving federal regulators evaluating the company’s 737 MAX jet, hindering the ability to protect airline passengers and leaving “pilots in the lurch,” the U.S. Justice Department said.
Mark Forkner, 49, was indicted by a grand jury in Texas on six counts of scheming to defraud Boeing’s U.S.-based airline customers to obtain tens of millions of dollars for Boeing, the government said.
Boeing declined to comment. A lawyer for Forkner did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
According to the indictment, Forkner, largely in the run-up to the Federal Aviation Administration’s decision to approve the 737 MAX in 2017, provided the FAA Aircraft Evaluation Group with “materially false, inaccurate, and incomplete information” about a new part of the flight controls for the Boeing 737 MAX, called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS).
The MCAS, a software feature designed to automatically push the airplane’s nose down in certain conditions, was tied to two fatal crashes of the 737 MAX over a five-month period that killed 346 people and led to the FAA’s grounding the plane for 19 months, an action which was lifted in November 2020.
“In an attempt to save Boeing money, Forkner allegedly withheld critical information from regulators,” said Chad Meacham, the acting U.S. attorney for Northern Texas. “His callous choice to mislead the FAA hampered the agency’s ability to protect the flying public and left pilots in the lurch, lacking information about certain 737 MAX flight controls.”
On technical fronts Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) Inc RSI stood at 44.63 and currently stock is trading below all MA. So, SELL position can be taken with following target and stoploss:
TRADE SIGNAL – : Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) Inc – SELL : 217.44, TARGET: 215.50, STOP LOSS : 219.42