DOJ files Boeing plea deal. Now, families of crash victims have 7 days to take action

by Dean Fri, July 26th 2024 at 6:21 PM

WASHINGTON (7News) — The clock is now ticking for families of Boeing crash victims to try to undo a plea deal between the aviation giant and the Department of Justice.

As part of the agreement, Boeing pleaded guilty to a fraud charge for misleading the FAA about the 737-max before two crashes that killed 346 people.

Families have long fought for Boeing to be criminally prosecuted for the deception and now have seven days to file a legal motion opposing the deal.

A United States District Court judge has given Boeing and the DOJ two weeks to respond and the families an additional five days to react before he makes his decision to accept or reject Boeing's plea deal.

The deal also includes a $243 million fine and a nearly half billion dollar investment in its compliance, quality and safety systems.

Boeing issued a statement saying the company “will continue to work transparently with our regulators as we take significant actions across Boeing to further strengthen" those programs.

Boeing was accused of misleading the Federal Aviation Administration about aspects of the Max before the agency certified the plane for flight. Boeing did not tell airlines and pilots about the new software system, called MCAS, that could turn the plane’s nose down without input from pilots if a sensor detected that the plane might go into an aerodynamic stall.

Max planes crashed in 2018 in Indonesia and 2019 in Ethiopia after a faulty reading from the sensor pushed the nose down and pilots were unable to regain control. After the second crash, Max jets were grounded worldwide until the company redesigned MCAS to make it less powerful.

Boeing avoided prosecution in 2021 by reaching a $2.5 billion settlement with the Justice Department that included the $243.6 million fine. It appeared that the fraud charge would be permanently dismissed until January, when a panel covering an unused exit blew off a 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight. That led to new scrutiny of the company’s safety.

In May of this year, prosecutors said Boeing failed to live up to terms of the 2021 agreement by failing to make promised changes to detect and prevent violations of federal anti-fraud laws. Boeing agreed this month to plead guilty to the felony fraud charge instead of enduring a potentially lengthy public trial.

The role and authority of the monitor is viewed as a key provision of the new plea deal, according to experts in corporate governance and white-collar crime. Paul Cassell, a lawyer for the families, has said that families of the crash victims should have the right to propose a monitor for the judge to appoint.

In Wednesday's filing, the Justice Department said that Boeing “took considerable steps” to improve its anti-fraud compliance program since 2021, but the changes “have not been fully implemented or tested to demonstrate that they would prevent and detect similar misconduct in the future.”

That’s where the independent monitor will come in, “to reduce the risk of misconduct,” the plea deal states.

If the judge approves the deal, it would apply to the the criminal charge stemming from the 737 Max crashes. It would not resolve other matters, potentially including litigation related to the Alaska Airlines blowout.