the ground position. Aviation writer Macarthur Job has said that "had that Boeing 767 been of an earlier version of the type, fitted with engines that were controlled mechanically rather than electronically, then that accident could not have happened". Lauda's visit with Boeing Lauda stated, "What really annoyed me was Boeing's reaction once the cause was clear. Boeing did not want to say anything." Lauda asked Boeing to fly the scenario in a simulator that used different data as compared to the one that Lauda had performed tests on at Gatwick Airport. Boeing initially refused, but Lauda insisted, so Boeing granted permission. Lauda attempted the flight in the simulator 15 times, and in every instance he was unable to recover. He asked Boeing to issue a statement, but the legal department said it could not be issued because it would take three months to adjust the wording. Lauda asked for a press conference the following day, and told Boeing that if it was possible to recover, he would be willing to fly on a 767 with two pilots and have the thrust reverser deploy in air. Boeing told Lauda that it was not possible, so he asked Boeing to issue a statement saying that it would not be survivable, and Boeing issued it. Lauda then added, "this was the first time in eight months that it had been made clear that the manufacturer [Boeing] was at fault and not the operator of the aeroplane [or Pratt and Whitney]." Previous testing of thrust reversers When the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) asked Boeing to test activating the thrust reverser in flight, the FAA had allowed Boeing to devise the tests. Boeing had insisted that a deployment was not possible in flight. In 1982 Boeing conducted a test wherein the aircraft was flown at , then slowed to , and the test pilots then deployed the thrust reverser. The control of the aircraft was not jeopardized. The FAA accepted the results of the test. The Lauda aircraft was traveling at a high speed () and at almost when the left thrust reverser deployed, causing the pilots to lose control of the aircraft. James R. Chiles, author of Inviting Disaster, said, "the point here is not that a thorough test would have told the pilots Thomas J. Welch and Josef Thumer what to do. A thrust reverser deploying in flight might not have