KUALA LUMPUR – Boeing is to plead guilty to fraud as part of a deal with the US Department of Justice (DoJ) over two fatal 737 MAX crashes, court documents show.
The court filings, reported by AFP in New York, detail the plea bargain which still has to be approved by a federal court judge.
The terms of the deal require the plane maker to serve three years of “organisational probation”, which includes being placed under independent monitoring and investing at least US$455 million (RM2.12 billion) on compliance, quality and safety programmes, AFP reported, citing the court filing.
The terms also require Boeing’s board of directors to meet the families of the crash victims of the Lion Air flight that crashed in Indonesia in 2018 killing 189 people, and the fatal Ethiopian Airlines flight in 2019 in which 157 people died.
The company also has to pay an additional US$243.6 million, on top of a previous fine after flouting an earlier settlement over the two plane crashes.
In May, the DoJ found that Boeing failed to improve its compliance and ethics programme which was a breach of a 2021 agreement with prosecutors following the MAX crashes.
Boeing had initially been charged with knowingly defrauding US aviation regulators, and the aviation giant was to have paid US$2.5 billion in fines in exchange for immunity from criminal prosecution, while being under a three-year probation.
The probation period was set to expire this year but a new wave of scrutiny was launched into Boeing after a door plug blew out from a 737 MAX operated by Alaska Airlines in January this year.
Family members of the crash victims reportedly oppose the plea bargain and are planning to seek the court’s rejection of the deal. – July 25, 2024