Boeing reaches a $1.1 billion deal with DOJ to avoid a 737 maximum collision prosecutor
Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg and GE Aerospace CEO Larry Culp thanked President Trump for brokering the historic $96 billion order from Qatar Airways.
The Justice Department said it had made a temporary transaction on Friday. Boeing and To help the company avoid criminal prosecution against regulators misleading the 737 maximum plane ahead of two crash crashes that killed 346 people.
The contract still needs to be finalized, but Boeing will pay $1.1 billion, including $445 million, to the fund for the families of crash victims, the Justice Department said in court documents.
Instead, federal prosecutors dismiss fraud charges against the aircraft manufacturer.
The Boeing logo was on the first day of the 2024 Farnborough International Air Show in London on July 22, 2024. (Getty Images/Justin Talis via Getty Images/AFP)
“Boeing must continue to improve the effectiveness of its anti-fraud compliance and ethics programme and maintain an independent compliance consultant,” the department said Friday. “We believe this solution is the most legitimate result with practical benefits.”
Last year, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to criminal fraud conspiracy after two fatal 737 crashes fell in Indonesia and Ethiopia in 2018 and 2019. The company previously agreed to pay fines of up to $487.2 million and faced three years of independent surveillance.
The deal, announced on Friday, did not work with the parents of those killed in the crash.
“This kind of nonprojection contract is unprecedented for the most deadly corporate crime in US history and is clearly wrong. My family wants to challenge the court to reject it,” Pro Bono Cassell, a professor at the University of Utah’s SJ Quinney College of Law.
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The first Boeing 737 Max 9 passenger plane was depicted on March 7, 2017 at the company’s factory in Renton, Washington. (Stephen Brashear / Getty Images / Getty Images)
“The filing leaves DOJ away from anything to seek justice for the victims of the 737’s biggest crash,” said Javier de Luis, a Massachusetts aerospace engineer whose sister was killed in the second crash. “Despite the mountains of reports and investigations over the past six years documenting Boeing’s misconduct, the DOJ claims that no one can prove that they have done wrong.
“‘Even if you kill them, you’ll just pay a little fine and move on,” he added. “Boeing has repeatedly shown that he cannot change his own way. Alaska Air Door Blowout five years after the fatal maximum crash proved this. The contract does not offer a robust, externally supervised safety monitoring program.”
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Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun is sworn in at the Senate Homeland Security and Government’s permanent subcommittee on June 18, 2024 in Hartville. (Tom Williams/CQ-Roll Call, Inc, Getty Images/Getty Images)
Boeing has faced an increase in scrutiny from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) since January 2024, when the new Max 9, which lost four key bolts in January 2024, suffered an air emergency and lost its door plugs, Reuters reported. The FAA produces 38 aircraft per month.
Last year, DOJ discovered that Boeing was violating a 2021 agreement to protect plane makers From the prosecutor.
Fox News Digital reached out to the Department of Justice.