Families of victims who lost loved ones in the fatal Boeing 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 are urging the U.S. Justice Department to prosecute the planemaker criminally. They allege that Boeing violated a 2021 deal to improve its compliance program after the crashes, citing a recent in-flight blowout incident involving a Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet.
The families and their lawyers argue that Boeing violated the 2021 agreement, which included a deferred prosecution charge on the condition of compliance. They point to the recent in-flight blowout incident during an Alaska Airlines flight on January 5, 2023, just two days before the agreement’s expiration, as evidence of Boeing’s continued safety and quality issues.
The Justice Department is now weighing the incident as part of a broader probe into whether Boeing violated the agreement. The 2021 deal required Boeing to pay $2.5 billion to resolve a criminal investigation into the company’s conduct surrounding the crashes, compensate victims’ relatives, and overhaul its compliance practices. It also included a six-month period for prosecutors to decide whether to prosecute Boeing on a charge that the company conspired to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) or pursue other alternatives to dismissing the case. That period expires on July 7, 2023.
Family members argue that an independent monitor is needed to ensure Boeing’s compliance with the agreement, a requirement not included in the 2021 deal. They believe that such a monitor would have prevented the Alaska Airlines incident.
Boeing and the Justice Department have declined to comment on the matter. The FAA is also investigating the Alaska Airlines incident, as well as claims from a Boeing engineer that the company dismissed safety and quality concerns in the production of the 787 and 777 jets.
The Justice Department’s decision on whether to prosecute Boeing is expected to be influenced by the FAA’s findings. Prosecutors are also expected to consider the engineer’s claims, which Boeing has disputed.
