The Department of Justice (DOJ) asked a federal judge on May 29 to dismiss its criminal fraud case against Boeing, saying it had reached an agreement with the aerospace giant.
The Justice Department’s new deal with Boeing will allow it to avoid being convicted of its felony charges, but the plane manufacturer will have to pay additional fees, including $444.5 million for a crash victims’ fund to be divided evenly among each victim, and another $243.6 million fine.
Boeing, which initially agreed to plead guilty last year as part of its deal with the government, will have to pay $1.1 billion in total. This includes fines, the victims’ families’ compensation fund, and more than $455 million to bolster the company’s compliance, safety, and quality programs, according to the Justice Department.
When Boeing was first charged in 2021 and offered a deferred prosecution agreement to avoid criminal sentencing, the company paid a total of $2.5 billion in penalties, fines, and money to compensate the families of the 2018 and 2019 737 MAX crash victims.
Tracy A. Brammeier, one of the attorneys representing the victims’ families, told The Epoch Times that the deal “fails to hold Boeing accountable for the deaths of 346 people.”
Previously in 2023, O'Connor said, “Boeing’s crime may properly be considered the deadliest corporate crime in U.S. history.”
Earlier this month, the Justice Department told the victims’ families that Boeing had no longer agreed to plead guilty in the case after O'Connor’s decision last year.
Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) last week urged the Justice Department to prosecute Boeing.
“DOJ must not sign a non-prosecution agreement with Boeing that would allow the company to weasel its way out of accountability for its failed corporate culture, and for any illegal behavior that has resulted in deadly consequences,” they wrote.
The Justice Department said on Thursday that its new deal “secures meaningful accountability, delivers substantial and immediate public benefits, and brings finality to a difficult and complex case whose outcome would otherwise be uncertain.”
The deal was finalized when Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg signed it on Thursday.
“Boeing is committed to complying with its obligations under the resolution reached today, which include a substantial additional fine and commitments to further institutional improvements and investments,” the aerospace giant said on Thursday.
The Justice Department contended that most of the families of the 346 people killed in the 737 MAX crashes have been collectively “paid several billion dollars” after settling civil suits with Boeing.
Under the new agreement, Boeing will no longer be supervised by an independent monitor, but will instead hire a compliance consultant. Its board of directors will also be required to meet with the victims’ families under the new deal.
The agreement nullifies a June 23 trial date that Boeing would have faced over charges of lying about its Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) flight control software, which caused the 2018 and 2019 crashes.
The software would automatically pitch the plane’s nose downward if a sensor detected a stall. Since, at the time, the 737 MAX relied on a single angle-of-attack sensor, erroneous readings activated MCAS, and the pilots were unable to disable the software in time to prevent catastrophic failure.
The planes have since been upgraded to correct the previous equipment malfunctions.
