While Weyl's biography paints an unpleasant picture of Fokker as a businessman, he was a popular and charismatic figure with service pilots, and could charm even senior officers. This charm enabled him to deal with the first major crisis of his German career when his newly delivered Fokker Dr.I triplanes began to experience sudden fatal accidents in late 1917, and the type was temporarily grounded as too dangerous to fly. The triplanes' top wings frequently ripped off under aerobatic conditions and even Lothar von Richthofen (brother of Manfred) was lucky to survive one such crash. Fokker was able to prove to the German high command that the basic design was not at fault, but the German military inquiry concluded that shoddy workmanship due to poor supervision and quality control at the Fokker factory were to blame. Fokker received a stern warning about future conduct. Unfortunately the same scenario repeated itself a few months later, with the introduction of his E.V/D.VIII monoplane in mid-1918. A further high level German inquiry revealed more production and workmanship issues. Weyl asserts that the German authorities were now willing to file criminal charges against Fokker, and might have done so, had he not returned to the Netherlands shortly after the end of World War I.