BOEING WILL PLEAD guilty to fraud in a deal with the US Department of Justice over two fatal 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019.
A total of 346 people died as a result of the crashes in Ethiopia in 2019 and Indonesia in 2018.
Among the deceased was 39-year-old Irish aid worker Mick Ryan, who was on board the flight from Addis Ababa in Ethiopia to Nairobi, Kenya on 10 March 2019.
Court papers filed in Texas yesterday evening said the company had agreed to plead guilty to “conspiracy to defraud the United States” during the certification of MAX airplanes.
The plea deal sees Boeing avoid a criminal trial, instead agreeing to a series of terms including a $243.6 million (€224.8 million) fine on top of the same sum already paid.
The company will also be required to make a minimum investment of $455 million (€420 million) in “compliance and safety programs”.
Such changes at the firm will be overseen by an independent monitor appointed by the government for a three-year term. The company’s board of directors will also be required to meet the families of crash victims.
The families of crash victims have immediately filed an objection to the deal, arguing that it “unfairly makes concessions to Boeing that other criminal defendants would never receive”.
“The generous plea agreement rests on deceptive and offensive premises,” the objection says.
In May, the US Department of Justice found that Boeing failed to improve its compliance and ethics program, in breach of a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) in the wake of the MAX crashes.
The conclusion opened up the company to possible prosecution, with Boeing initially arguing it did not violate the 2021 accord.
- © AFP 2024, with reporting by Muiris O’Cearbhaill
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