2024-07-11 19:11:22
Boeing The airline reported on Monday that it reached an agreement with the US Department of Justice (DoJ) in the criminal case over the crashes of two 737 MAX aircraft in 2018 and 2019 in which 346 people died.
“We have reached an agreement in principle on the terms of a resolution with the Department of Justice,” he said. Boeing in a statement sent to AFP.
The deal comes after prosecutors found the U.S. aviation giant breached a previous agreement over crashes in Ethiopia and Indonesia.
The victims’ families asked the court to reject the settlement at an upcoming hearing, arguing that it “unfairly makes concessions to Boeing that other defendants would never receive.”
According to court documents filed in Texas on Sunday, the company agreed to plead guilty to “conspiring to defraud the United States” during the certification of the MAX aircraft.
Boeing will be fined under the settlement and required to invest a minimum of $455 million in “compliance and safety programs.”
Compensation to the victims’ families will be determined by the court.
The DoJ found in May that the company ignored a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) by failing to comply with requirements to improve its ethics and compliance programs after the accidents.
“Very disappointed”
Families of the victims said they were “very disappointed” by the agreement between Boeing and the DoJ, said a lawyer with the firm Clifford Law, which is representing them.
“Over the past five years, more and more evidence has emerged showing that Boeing’s culture of putting profit over safety has not changed. This plea agreement only furthers that corporate objective,” attorney Robert A. Clifford said in a statement.
Catherine Berthet, who lost her daughter Camille in the Ethiopian Airlines crash, lamented on Monday: “The American judicial system, which should be an example to the whole world, is in fact displaying shameful complacency towards those who prioritise short-term profitability and image over the safety of (their) passengers.”
“Once again, (…) the DoJ ignores the families by not mentioning any of the victims in the agreement,” he stressed.
In its Sunday filing, the Justice Department said it intended to meet with the family members shortly.
Immunity
Following the two accidents, all 737 MAXs were grounded for twenty months in the United States and the rest of the world. In April 2019, Boeing admitted that its MCAS flight management software was partly to blame.
Under the 2021 settlement, Boeing paid $2.5 billion in exchange for, among other things, immunity for its executives from criminal prosecution.
Only one person, a former Boeing test pilot, was prosecuted in this case. He was acquitted.
The three-year trial period was set to expire this year. But in January, Boeing was once again in crisis when an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX plane was forced to make an emergency landing after a fuselage panel broke off in flight.
In a May 14 letter to the U.S. court, DoJ officials said Boeing breached its obligations under the DPA by “failing to design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of U.S. fraud laws.”
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2024-07-11 19:11:22