Families of some of the 346 people killed in two fatal Boeing 737 Max crashes said on Wednesday a US judge should reject the planemaker’s proposed plea deal with the US Department of Justice and said the government should seek a much higher fine.
On 24 July, the global company finalized an agreement to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge and pay between $243.6m and $487m after breaching a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement.
In October 2018, 189 people were killed when Lion Air flight 610 fell into the sea off Indonesia. In March 2019, Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crashed shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa airport, killing 157 people.
In 2021, federal prosecutors alleged Boeing committed conspiracy to defraud the government by misleading regulators about a flight-control system that was implicated in the crashes. However, they agreed not to prosecute if Boeing paid a penalty and completed a three-year period of increased monitoring.
However, a panel blew off a Max jetliner during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. Although no one was injured, there was a fresh rise in scrutiny of Boeing’s safety record and in May, the justice department found the company had violated the 2021 deal and decided to reopen the possibility of a prosecution.
Paul Cassell, a lawyer for some of the families, said in a court filing the fine “is inadequate – or, at the very least, rests on misleading accounting and inaccurate accounting”. He added the fine “fails to reflect that Boeing’s crime killed 346 innocent victims”. Cassell called that decision “not only inaccurate – it is morally reprehensible”.
Adrian Vuckovich, another lawyer representing relatives, said in a separate filing: “We suggest that Boeing should be required to pay a substantial fine which recognizes the value of each of the 346 people killed, the substantial harm to others and pay a fine which is consistent with fines paid by other corporate criminal defendants.”
The families cited O’Connor’s statement in a February 2023 ruling: “Boeing’s crime may properly be considered the deadliest corporate crime in US history.”
Spokespeople for Boeing and the justice department did not immediately comment to Reuters on the families’ filings.
Reuters contributed to this report
