Washington, DC- Last week, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) released a trove of documents related to its investigation into the crashes of Lion Air Flight 610, and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, which killed 346 people and led to the worldwide grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX airliner.
Included within these documents were internal memos regarding the approval process of the 737 Max, as well as emails regarding efforts to manipulate FAA inspectors throughout the approval process.
Much of the content within these documents had been previously known, including internal company emails in which employees seemed to mock the plane, describing it as:
[An] airplane… designed by clowns who in turn are supervised by monkeys.
In another internal email from 2018, an employee laments:
I still haven’t been forgiven by God for the covering up I did last year…
Thus referring to their previous interactions with the FAA.
In another set of emails, one Boeing employee asked another@
Would you put your family on a Max simulator trained aircraft? I wouldn’t.
The other employee responded with a one word answer:
No.
Boeing released a statement following these revelations last weekend:
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 apologize to the FAA, Congress, our airline customers, and to the flying public for them. We have made significant changes as a company to enhance our safety processes, organizations, and culture.
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Further evaluation of these documents has also revealed that on March 19, 2019, one day after aviation authorities around the world had banned the airliner, leadership within Boeing began the process of developing a contingency plan, should the plane be grounded permanently.
According to one internal email, titled “737 MAX Re-purposed,” a top level employee suggested that:
[B]ecause of the specific “side-effect” associated with the MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), I suggest we transfer production of the MAX to the SMS (Space and Missile Systems) Division and weaponized the asset, should regulators decide not to re-certify.
Another high level employee also suggested turning the MAX into a weapon in an email titled “AI Kamikaze,” dated April 17, 2019. This employee seems to go even further, suggesting they had already consulted with company engineers about the idea.
There has been talk of re-purposing the MAX for military application should the FAA balk at re-certification, which I think is brilliant! After speaking with engineers at SMS, they suggest it would be best to utilize the R and D wing of the AS (Autonomous Systems) Division for production and development instead. AS seems to think they can turn the MAX into an AI guided “Super Missile,” and they can do it without addressing the programming glitches baked into the MCAS system. The engineers seem to think we could also add some nuclear elements as well, and turn the MAX into a concealed Tactical Nuclear Weapon. According to the engineers in AS, we could accomplish the “Super Missile” upgrade at a cost of about 1.5 million per plane. I looked the numbers they sent over this morning, and they look solid. As far as the nuclear option goes… I don’t have the numbers yet. I’ll follow up when those have been calculated
On the heels of this latest bombshell, Boeing issued a statement:
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 apologize to the FAA, Congress, our airline customers, and to the flying public for them. We have made significant changes as a company to enhance our safety processes, organizations, and culture.
Further attempts for comment from Boeing personnel were denied. An FAA Spokesperson refused to comment on this story siting department policy. This story is still developing, and will be updated as additional information becomes available.
What other consumer products are the profiteers of the military industrial complex planning on weaponizing? Let me know your worst ideas in the comments section below.
No Animals were harmed while researching or writing of this Farticle.
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