A CO Tyrone man has won a prestigious journalism award for his work in exposing design flaws in a controversial aircraft.
Dominic Gates was one of several reporters at the Seattle Times to scoop the coveted Pulitzer Prize this week.
Mr Gates and his colleagues were awarded the accolade in the National Reporting category for "groundbreaking stories that exposed design flaws in the Boeing 737 MAX that led to two deadly crashes and revealed failures in government oversight”.
The award-winning journalist moved to Seattle in 1992 and after working as a freelance journalist he eventually landed a job at The Industry Standard, an IT business magazine.
A former maths teacher, he was appointed as an aerospace reporter at the Seattle Times in 2003.
The Seattle-based reporters have written extensively on two air crashes, in 2018 and 2019, involving Boeing 737 Max 8 aircraft that resulted in the loss of 346 lives.
The Seattle Times focused on the information provided to aviation authorities in America about key features of the plane’s automated flight control system.
In addition it highlighted the regulatory process that allowed the design to be approved.
The paper has also examined the human toll of the crashes and the economic impact.
