The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has joined on ongoing criminal investigation into the controversial certification of the recently-grounded Boeing 737 MAX aircraft.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has joined on ongoing criminal investigation into the controversial certification of the recently-grounded Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. According to anonymous sources cited by The Seattle Times, the FBI’s entry into the inquiry will add “considerable resources” to an already extant criminal investigation being conducted by agents with the U. S. Department of Transportation.
Operating under the auspices of a federal grand jury investigation based out of Washington, D. C., the probe at this point is largely focused on what exactly went wrong, if anything, during the process that allowed for Boeing’s plane to be certified as safe and compliant with federal aviation regulations.
In Oct. 2018, Lion Air Flight 610 crashed just 12 minutes after taking off from Jakarta. All 189 occupants were killed due to problems with Flight 610’s angle of attack sensors and the automatic system the plane used to correct what those incorrect readings showed. Earlier in March 2019, all 149 passengers and eight crew members onboard Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 were killed just minutes after the plane took off from Addis Ababa. An investigation into what caused that tragedy is currently underway by Ethiopian officials.
Bloomberg notes that the current investigation is being overseen by the U. S. Department of Justice’s criminal division and is being carried out by the Department of Transportation’s Inspector General’s office–which has authority to conduct both regulatory audits and criminal investigations.
