According to a newspaper report, a former test pilot for the US aircraft manufacturer Boeing is facing charges in connection with two crashes of Boeing 737 MAX planes.
The former chief technical pilot Mark Forkner is suspected of having deceived the US air traffic control authority FAA in the approval process for the 737 MAX, reported the "Wall Street Journal" on Thursday.
The 737 MAX was registered in March 2017.
Forkner was the direct contact between the aircraft manufacturer and the FAA.
According to documents released in early 2020, he had boasted of being able to deceive his FAA colleagues in order to obtain certification for the MCAS stabilization system specially developed for the Boeing 737 MAX.
In October 2018 and March 2019, two machines of the type crashed in Indonesia and Ethiopia, killing a total of 346 people.
In both cases, the MCAS had submitted incorrect data.
In March 2019, a global flight ban was imposed on the previous bestseller from Boeing, which was only lifted at the end of 2020 after a revision of the system.
The US Department of Justice initially did not confirm the threatened lawsuit against Forkner.
The lawyer for the former Boeing pilot did not respond to a request from the AFP news agency either.
From the "Wall Street Journal" report it was not clear in which court the former pilot will be charged.
Boeing had admitted its responsibility for the crashes earlier this year and accepted a billion-dollar fine to avert criminal proceedings.
The company agreed to pay a $ 2.5 billion fine and compensation.
Last week, a US judge admitted another lawsuit against the company.
The shareholders are suing Boeing's board of directors for ignoring warnings regarding the MCAS safety system after the first crash.