Boeing Co. and the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration are engulfed in a public rupture over a bombshell revelation about the 737 Max, and the timing couldn’t be worse — just as the planemaker and the regulator are working to get the grounded jet back in the skies.
The feud centers on messages between senior Boeing pilots in late 2016, as the aircraft was in testing. One of the pilots recounted a rocky simulator trial of software known as the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, which would later play a role in two fatal crashes that killed 346 people. The handling performance was “egregious,” he said.
