US court rejects Boeing’s proposed plea deal in fatal 737 MAX crashes
December 6, 2024
The US Department of Justice (DOJ)’s rejection of Boeing’s plea deal casts renewed uncertainty into the resolution of the MAX fraud case, with the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas Judge Reed O’Connor highlighting the need for the government to adequately address “diversity and inclusion” factors when hiring an independent monitor to audit Boeing’s compliance practices. Believing the provisional plea agreement “marginalises” the court, it therefore concluded that proposed provisions “are inappropriate and against the public interest”.
In July 2024, the US manufacturing giant agreed to plead guilty to fraud as part of a deal with the DOJ, essentially admitting that it violated a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement in the wake of two fatal MAX crashes. This arrangement included an additional $243.6 million to be paid by Boeing, doubling the amount previously paid, and necessitated a three-year probation period with increased compliance and safety monitoring. However, allocating provision for this final element appears to have stalled the deal.
Following the crash of Lion Air flight 610 in October 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 in March 2019, Boeing initially entered into an agreement with the DoJ in January 2021 to “resolve a criminal charge related to a conspiracy to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration’s Aircraft Evaluation Group”. At the time, acting assistant attorney General David Purns accused Boeing of “fraudulent and deceptive conduct” – with Boeing’s alleged coverup into critical elements of its MAX 8’s Manoeuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MACS) software at the heart of the issue.
Families of the victims have long challenged the plea deal, with a 2022 hearing concluding that – contrary to the government’s earlier position that the crash victims were not “crime victims” – they had in fact “suffered direct and proximate harm that charged conspiracy”.
The US States District Court for the Northern District of Texas has directed the parties to confer and “provide the Court with an update on how they plan to proceed in this matter” within 30 days.
