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Alsharq Tribune- Zainab Hussin
The US Justice Department has reached a deal with Boeing that will allow the company to avoid criminal prosecution over allegations linked to two fatal 737 Max crashes, according to court documents.
Under the deal, which still needs to be finalized, the US aircraft manufacturer would pay or invest more than $1.1 billion, including an additional $444.5 million for the crash victims' families, the US Department of Justice said on Friday.
The accidents in October 2018 and March 2019 claimed the lives of 346 people. The crashes were caused by aircraft software that was supposed to support pilots but interfered with the controls more than expected.
It steered the aircraft towards the ground but the pilots of the two aircraft were ultimately unable to turn them back to level flight. Aircraft of this type were not allowed to fly for almost two years until the error in the software was rectified.
Boeing was subsequently accused of fraud in criminal proceedings because employees of the aircraft manufacturer had declared special training for the software to be unnecessary when the type was certified by US authorities.
The Justice Department said some families of the victims support the settlement, while others have vowed to oppose it through legal action. At the time of the crash, Boeing avoided prosecution by promising to implement a compliance and ethics programme.
The company also paid a fine of $243.6 million plus $500 million to victims' families.
However, a new investigation was sparked in January 2024 when a fuselage fragment of a virtually new Boeing aircraft broke off during a climb. Nobody was injured in the incident but it was only due to luck that the seats next to the hole in the fuselage were not occupied at the time.
