By Deutsche Welle
25 Jul 2024, 01:12 AM EDT
US aircraft manufacturer Boeing will plead guilty to fraud as part of an agreement with the US Department of Justice for two fatal accidents involving its 737 MAX model, according to a court document released on Wednesday.
The deal comes after prosecutors concluded Boeing breached an earlier agreement over those disasters, one in Ethiopia and one in Indonesia, in which 346 people died more than five years ago.
The plea agreement must be approved by a federal court judge and includes an additional payment of $243.6 million.in addition to a previous fine for the same amount.
The settlement comes after the Justice Department found in May that Boeing had failed to improve its compliance and ethics program, violating a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) following the 737 MAX crashes.
Boeing violated the DPA “by failing to sufficiently design, implement and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of U.S. fraud laws across its operations,” the prosecutor said in court documents.
The plea agreement requires Boeing to serve three years of “organizational probation,” which includes having an independent monitor and investing at least $455 million in quality and safety programs.
Families of the crash victims have opposed the deal, saying it “unfairly makes concessions to Boeing that other defendants charged with criminal wrongdoing would never receive.”
Boeing must meet with families of victims
The company’s board of directors must meet with the relatives of the victims of the accidents in 2018 and 2019under the terms of the agreement.
But they have said they will ask the court to reject it because it is “based on misleading and offensive premises,” according to an objection filed by their legal team when the deal first became known.
The original DPA was announced in January 2021 following allegations that Boeing deliberately defrauded U.S. aviation regulators. It required the aircraft manufacturer to pay $2.5 billion in fines and restitution in exchange for immunity from criminal prosecution.
A three-year trial period was set to expire in 2024, but in January Boeing was plunged into crisis again when an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX was forced to make an emergency landing after losing a fuselage panel in flight.
The incident triggered a new wave of scrutiny over the company’s manufacturing and safety practices, with the opening of formal investigations by regulators and the US Congress.
In a letter sent on May 14, 2024 to the court overseeing the “MAX Case,” Justice Department officials said Boeing had breached its obligations.
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