Boeing said that if a plea deal with the Justice Department is approved, it would plead guilty to conspiracy and pay a fine of about $250 million. Court filings It was released on Wednesday.
The proposed settlement would close a years-long investigation into two crashes of the company’s Max jets in 2018 and 2019. Federal investigators determined that a software error caused the crashes, which killed about 350 people.
The company is accused of misleading the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) about the safety of the MCAS software on its MAX planes.
The settlement sees Boeing admitting that it provided “incomplete and inaccurate information” to the FAA about the MAX’s software, compromising safety.
Boeing also agreed to three years of organizational probation as part of the deal, a $455 million investment in its compliance program, board meetings with families of the crash victims and an independent compliance officer to oversee the deal.
The petition must first be approved by U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor.
Lawyers representing some of the victims’ families slammed the agreement as insufficient.
“The proposed answer has all of the problems the families feared, and we will file strong objections to the preferential treatment and ‘preferential treatment’ being given to Boeing with Judge O’Connor within seven days. We urge that this answer be dismissed,” Paul Cassell said in a statement.
Boeing previously agreed to a $2.5 billion settlement with the Justice Department in 2021 to resolve safety concerns about its MAX planes and avoid prosecution. The Justice Department alleged that Boeing violated the agreement after a door plug blew off an Alaska Airlines plane in January, again rocking the company with safety concerns.
The Justice Department said in its filing Wednesday that Boeing has “taken substantial steps” to improve its anti-fraud compliance program since 2021, but that the changes “have not been fully implemented or tested to demonstrate that they will prevent or detect similar misconduct in the future.”
Boeing stood by the settlement agreement in a statement to The Hill on Thursday.
“Boeing and the Department of Justice have filed detailed plea agreements in federal court, pending court approval,” the company said. “We will continue to work transparently with regulators and take important steps across the company to further strengthen our safety, quality and compliance programs.”
