The US Justice Department on Tuesday notified Boeing that it breached terms of its 2021 agreement in which the company avoided criminal charges for two fatal 737 Max crashes.
After a series of safety missteps earlier this year, including a door plug that blew off an Alaska Airlines flight shortly after take-off in January, the Department of Justice said Boeing is now subject to criminal prosecution, reports CNN.
“For failing to fulfil completely the terms of and obligations under the [Deferred prosecution agreement], Boeing is subject to prosecution by the United States for any federal criminal violation of which the United States has knowledge,” the Justice Department said in a letter to US District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, who oversaw the prior agreement.
The Biden administration said in its letter that it has not yet determined how it will proceed, however, and Boeing will have an opportunity to respond to its breach of the agreement — and steps it has taken to remediate the situation — by June 13. It will let the court know by July 7 how it will proceed with the case.
The notification comes as the Justice Department conducts a new investigation into Boeing’s operations in the wake the door plug incident. The earlier deal had resolved a fraud investigation related to the company’s development of its 737 Max aircraft.
Under its deferred prosecution agreement from January 2021, Boeing paid $2.5 billion in penalties and promised to improve its safety and compliance protocols. Families of victims of the October 2018 Lion Air 737 Max crash and the March 2019 Ethiopian Airlines 737 Max crash had long denounced the delayed prosecution agreement, arguing it denied them justice for the deaths of their loved ones.
Families of victims and lawyers representing them met with the Justice Department late last month to persuade the Biden administration to end the agreement in light of multiple safety lapses at Boeing this year and in past years after the 2021 agreement was reached.
Following the April 2024 meeting, attorney Paul Cassell, who represents the victims’ families, said at a press conference that the deferred prosecution agreement was “Rigged” and brokered without families’ say. Cassell pledged to hold Boeing accountable for its “Fraud and misconduct.”
On Tuesday, Cassell said, “This is a positive first step, and for the families, a long time coming. But we need to see further action from DOJ to hold Boeing accountable, and plan to use our meeting on May 31 to explain in more detail what we believe would be a satisfactory remedy to Boeing’s ongoing criminal conduct.”
The Justice Department in its letter said it notified the families that Boeing breached its agreement, and it will continue to confer with families of the crash victims as well as other airline customers about next steps. The Department of Justice plans to meet with the families next on May 31.
In Thursday’s letter to the federal judge overseeing the prior agreement, the Justice Department said it had notified the company that “The government has determined that Boeing breached its obligations” in multiple parts of the 2021 deal “By failing to design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the US fraud laws throughout its operations.”
