Boeing Pleads Guilty to Conspiracy Charge but Avoids Harsher Penalties Sought by Families of Victims

Reportedly, Boeing has agreed to accept the plea deal, much to the dismay of victims’ families who have made statements calling it a “sweetheart deal” and “miscarriage of justice.”

The deal would force Boeing to pay $487 million in fines, which is much smaller than the $24.8 billion that victims’ families had been pushing for. The agreement also forces Boeing to be under the watch of an independent monitor for three years and make improvements to its safety and quality procedures.

“This resolution protects the American public,” said the DOJ’s statement. “Boeing will be required to make historic investments to strengthen and integrate its compliance and safety programs. This criminal conviction demonstrates the department’s commitment to holding Boeing accountable for its misconduct.”

“This sweetheart deal fails to recognize that because of Boeing’s conspiracy, 346 people died,” said a statement from Paul Cassell, a representative of many family members of the 2018 and 2019 crash victims. “This deceptive and generous deal is clearly not in the public interest.”

“DOJ is resolving with Boeing only for misconduct that predated the 737 Max crashes — and not providing immunity for any other corporate conduct, including the Alaska Airlines 1282 incident,” said the DOJ.

“DOJ is resolving only with the company — and providing no immunity to any individual employees, including corporate executives, for any conduct,” said the DOJ.

“Miscarriage of justice is a gross understatement in describing this,” said Kuria. “I hope that, God forbid, if this happens again the DoJ is reminded that it had the opportunity to do something meaningful and instead chose not to.”

Before it can be official, the deal has to be accepted by the judge, which gives victims’ families time to formally declare their opposition to the agreement.

This only gives victim’s families a limited time to file their opposition in the U.S. District Court in Fort Worth, Texas.

“The families intend to argue that the plea deal with Boeing unfairly makes concessions to Boeing that other criminal defendants would never receive and fails to hold Boeing accountable for the deaths of 346 persons. As a result, the generous plea agreement rests on deceptive and offensive premises,” the attorneys for the families wrote.

“So who is going to prison?  Two full planes of people are dead.  Paying a fine with a golden parachute isn’t justice,” said one X user.

“I assume those responsible will avoid prison,” said X user Kim Masters. “If we were living in sane times, @Boeing would have been grounded until thoroughly investigated and problems corrected long ago,” said X user Heather Haddad.