According to NPR, the Boeing corp. has accepted a plea deal to plead guilty to criminal fraud for two crashes involving their 737 Max planes.
They will pay a $243 million fine on top of a previous fine payment of the same amount, invest at least $455 million in it's compliance and safety programs, and will be put on probation and subject to independent monitors for three years.
This is outrageous:
This deal follows an earlier agreement between the DOJ and Boeing in 2021, when the company promised to make safety changes after the two overseas Max crashes. But prosecutors say Boeing did not hold up its end of the deal. In May, the federal government said Boeing “breached its obligations” under the agreement “by failing to design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the U.S. fraud laws.”
So Boeing simply ignores the mandate for implimenting safety upgrades and not a single person is held accountable.
The families of those who died in the crash opposed the plea deal and their attorneys plan to fight the DOJ/ Boeing ruling.
In a separate filing Sunday, attorneys for the families say they plan to ask a judge to reject this deal because it “unfairly makes concessions to Boeing that other criminal defendants would never receive and fails to hold Boeing accountable for the deaths of 346 persons.”
I think “other criminal defendants” can be translated to “the common person” who would have paid a harsher price for the same kind of neglect Boeing is guilty of.
It appears the DOJ gave Boeing a slap on the wrist and the families nothing.