Federal prosecutors on Friday told relatives of those who lost loved ones in fatal crashes of two 737 Max jets that they are considering dropping a criminal case against Boeing, lawyers said. An attorney representing the families said the notification amounted to a “prearranged conclusion.”
The news, which came during a video meeting with Justice Department lawyers, is the latest twist in the long-running case that has centered around Boeing’s role in two fatal airliner crashes that combined killed 346 people — one in Indonesia in 2018 and a second, five months later, in Ethiopia.
Family members were stunned, lawyers said. Under an agreement reached last year, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to one count of fraud, but the deal did not result in a formal plea. Instead, as talks continued, a federal judge set a date for a criminal trail next month in Texas.
Paul Cassell, a professor of criminal law at the S.J. Quinney College of Law at the University of Utah, who is representing the families, said in a statement that while Lorinda Laryea, the acting chief of the criminal fraud division, indicated that a final decision has not been made in a meeting with families Friday, it was clear that Boeing would face few consequences for its role in the deadly crashes.
“Today the Justice Department’s Criminal Division held a ‘conferral session’ but didn’t truly confer at all,” he added. “Instead, they conveyed their preconceived idea that Boeing should be allowed to escape any real consequences for its deadly lies. We hope that this bizarre plan will be rejected by the leadership of the Department.”
Added Robert Clifford, lead counsel in a civil case pending against Boeing in federal district court in Chicago: “We are offended by this deal, and we will challenge this.”
The Justice Department declined to comment.
During the first Trump administration, Boeing reached an agreement with federal prosecutors that shielded it from criminal prosecution in exchange for paying a fine and meeting certain conditions. If after three years, the Justice Department determined that Boeing met the terms of the deal, the company would not face criminal prosecution.
The announcement angered families who were not told ahead of time that Boeing had reached a deal with federal prosecutors.
Boeing appeared on track to meet the conditions of the deferred prosecution agreement. Then, in January 2024, a portion of a 737 Max jet operated by Alaska Airlines blew out in midflight. The company — and its promises to focus on safety in the wake of the 2018 and 2019 crashes – was suddenly back under the microscope and the subject of multiple federal probes into its manufacturing and safety oversight systems.
At the same time, federal prosecutors have begun a review of whether Boeing had met the conditions of its agreement with the department. In May, the Justice Department, now under the Biden administration, determined that the company was in breach of the agreement. Last July, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to one count of fraud, pay $243.6 million in penalties, invest $455 million to strengthen its safety, quality and compliance programs, and submit to oversight by an independent monitor for three years.
In December, however, District Court Judge Reed O’Connor of the Northern District of Texas, who is overseeing the case, rejected the plea agreement, citing concerns that diversity was among the criteria being used to select the outside monitor.
After the change in administration, prosecutors sought more time to review the agreement. In March, one day after the Wall Street Journal reported that Boeing was negotiating with the Justice Department to withdraw its guilty plea and forgo outside monitoring, O’Connor set a June 23 trial date.
The revised agreement must be approved by O’Connor.
The criminal case delved back into the design of the Max, an updated version of the hugely popular single-aisle 737. Boeing was racing to get the plane into service in the 2010s, locked in competition with its European rival Airbus, which was also offering a new model.The automated system implicated in the crashes — which was supposed to push the nose of the jet down inlimitedcircumstances — was needed because of new, larger engines on the Max.
Prosecutors have said that its two technical pilots concealed information from an FAA oversight office that the automated system could be triggered during a wider range of conditions, leading to mention of the system being removed from a safety report. That meant airline pilots in the United States and around the world did not have to undergo expensive training on the new system.
But it also meant that pilots were not familiar with its operation.The FAA office only learned of the expanded scope of the system’s operationafter the first crash, according to prosecutors.
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