The US Government asks Boeing to plead guilty in a "advantageous deal"

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) is pressuring Boeing to declare itself guilty of criminal fraud regarding two fatal plane crashes in which its 737 Max reactors were involved, as revealed by sources familiar with the matter.

Boeing will have until the end of next week to accept or reject the plea offer, which imposes a financial penalty on the manufacturerThe agreement, according to sources familiar with the matter, also requires the manufacturer to allow an independent monitor to oversee its compliance with anti-fraud laws over a period of three years.

The DOJ decided to move forward with the prosecution after accusing Boeing of violating a 2021 agreement related to fatal accidents. The accident involving Indonesia’s Lion Air occurred in October 2018followed by a Ethiopian Airlines flight in March 2019.

The previous agreement was reached after the company acknowledged that it had deceived air safety regulators on the 737 Max. The company blamed two relatively low-level employees for the fraud, paid a $244 million fine and pledged to launch a new compliance system to prevent further fraud.

Relatives of deceased victims accuse Boeing of ‘gaslighting’

In May of this year, DOJ accused Boeing of breaching the agreementalleging that it had failed to “design, implement and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of US anti-fraud laws throughout its operations.”

The DOJ informed the families of some of the 346 people who died in the accidents about the recent plea offer during a video meeting.

The relatives, who want Boeing face a criminal trial and pay a fine of $24.8 billion (23,000 million euros), reacted angrily. One of them said that prosecutors They were deceiving families. Another yelled at them for several minutes when given the opportunity to speak.

“We’re angry. They should just prosecute,” said Massachusetts resident Nadia Milleron, whose 24-year-old daughter, Samya Stumo, died in the second of two 737 Max crashes. “This is nothing more than letting Boeing off the hook again“.

People familiar with the matter say the DOJ plans to take Boeing to trial if the company refuses to plead guilty, although both sides have declined to comment.

They ask that the judge decide the sentences

The plea deal would take away U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor’s ability to increase Boeing’s sentence upon conviction, and some of the families plan ask the Texas judge to reject the deal if Boeing accepts it.

“The outrageous underlying piece of this agreement is that it fails to recognize that Boeing crime killed 346 people“said Paul Cassell, one of the attorneys for the victims’ families. “Boeing is not going to be held accountable for this and is not going to admit that this happened.”

Sanjiv Singh, a lawyer for 16 families who lost relatives in the October 2018 Lion Air crash off Indonesia, called the plea offer “extremely disappointing.” The terms, he said, “read like an advantageous deal.”

Boeing has large contracts with the Pentagon and NASAwhich some legal experts say could be jeopardized if Boeing is convicted. Meanwhile, federal agencies may grant exemptions to companies convicted of serious crimes so that they remain eligible for government contracts. Lawyers for the families of the crash victims hope that will be done in the Boeing case.

The Department of Justice Nor has it given any indication that it will prosecute any Boeing executive or former executive.another of the families’ demands.

It is not clear what impact a plea deal could have on other investigations into Boeingincluding those that followed the bursting of a Boeing Max 9 side door plug during an Alaska Airlines flight in January.

Meanwhile, Boeing announced on Monday its plans to acquire aerospace supplier Spirit AeroSystems for $4.7 billion (4.4 billion euros), a measure aimed at improving security.

“With the reintegration of Spirit, we can fully align our commercial production systems“, including our safety and quality management systems, and our workforce with the same priorities, incentives and results, focused on safety and quality,” said Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun. Spirit manufactured the fuselage involved in the door plug explosion in January.