Also: Canada Limits 5G, Sonaca 200 Selected, Alaskan Aviation Safety, Bell Autonomous Pod Transport

A federal grand jury in the Northern District of Texas returned an indictment charging a former Chief Technical Pilot for The Boeing Company with deceiving the FAA’s Aircraft Evaluation Group (AEG) in connection with their evaluation of the Boeing 737 MAX, as well as scheming to defraud Boeing’s U.S.-based airline customers to obtain tens of millions of dollars for Boeing.

Mark A. Forkner, 49, former Chief Technical Pilot for Boeing, has been charged with two counts of fraud involving aircraft parts in interstate commerce and four counts of wire fraud. Delta Airlines Boss, Ed Bastian, has spoken about their lack of mandatory employee coronavirus vaccination. With other carriers entering a game of chicken, where employees choose between vaccination or forced termination, the move made weekend headlines. Bastian said, “The reason the mandate was put in by the president, I believe, is because they wanted to make sure companies had a plan to get their employees vaccinated..." Virgin Galactic will take time from their projected launch schedule for the upcoming Unity 23 flight to begin an enhancement program for VMS Eve and VSS Unity. As part of their continuing quality assessments, material testing returned data outside of planned specifications, specifically a reduction in the strength margins of materials used in a number of joints in the aircraft. As a result, the projected launch for Unity 23 has been postponed, and commercial service of the aircraft tentatively expected in the 4th quarter of 2022. All this -- and MORE in today's episode of Airborne!!!

Airborne 10.18.21 is chock full of info in this Daily News Episode, Monday, October 18th, 2021... Presented by Aero-TV veteran videographer and Airborne Host Kimberly Kay. Kimberly is supported by ANN Chief Videographer Nathan Cremisino, as well as ANN CEO/Editor-In-Chief Jim Campbell. This episode covers:

• Ex-Boeing Pilot Indicted by Grand Jury for Role in 737 MAX Approval
• Delta Airlines Rumored Ready to Drop Vaccine Mandate
• Virgin Galactic Postpones Unity 23 Flight for Upgrades
• Someone Gets It... Canada Limits 5G Around Aero-Facilities
• Pull Up Academy Selects Sonaca 200
• FAA Eyes Alaskan Aviation Safety In Recent Report
• Bell Autonomous Pod Transport Test Drops Cargo

Get Comprehensive, Real-Time, 24/7 coverage of the latest aviation and aerospace stories anytime, at aero-news.net. And be sure to join us again tomorrow, for the next edition of "Airborne Unlimited" here on Aero-TV. Thanks for watching. See you, again, tomorrow!

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