Boeing reaches deal to avoid prosecution over fatal 737 Max crashes

Company to 'pay or invest' more than $1.1 billion

A Boeing 737 Max aircraft. The company must continue to improve the effectiveness of its anti-fraud compliance and ethics programme, the US Justice Department says. Reuters

The US Justice Department and Boeing have reached a deal that will allow the company to avoid trial over two 737 Max crashes that resulted in the deaths of 346 people, according to court filings on Friday.

The settlement was made weeks before a trial was set to begin on June 23 in Fort Worth, Texas. The agreement still needs to be approved by US District Judge Reed O’Connor.

Boeing agreed to pay $444.5 million into a fund for the crash victims' families on top of an additional $243.6 million fine. Boeing must also pay a $487.2 million fine, although the department said the $243.6 million it paid in a previous agreement would be credited.

In total, Boeing will pay more than $1.1 billion in fines, compensation and investments to strengthen its compliance, safety and quality programmes.

In exchange, the Justice Department would dismiss the fraud charge in the aviation giant's criminal case.

“Boeing must continue to improve the effectiveness of its anti-fraud compliance and ethics programme, and retain an independent compliance consultant empowered to make recommendations for further improvement and required to report its findings directly to the Government,” the Justice Department wrote in the filing.

Boeing reached a non-prosecution agreement with the US over two fatal 737 Max crashes. Screengrab / US Department of Justice

Paul Cassell, a lawyer for many of the victims' families, has previously urged the Justice Department not to seek a deal with Boeing.

Before the settlement was reached, US senators Elizabeth Warren and Richard Blumenthal urged President Donald Trump's administration to hold Boeing and its executives accountable over the 2018 Lion Air and the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crashes.

“Any deal between DOJ and Boeing that would allow the company and its executives to avoid accountability would be a serious mistake,” they wrote in a letter to US Attorney General Pam Bondi.

Boeing agreed to a deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department in 2021 over the crashes, but the issue was thrust back into the spotlight in January 2024 after a door plug blew off on an Alaska Airlines plane mid-flight.

Prosecutors later that year said Boeing had failed to improve its compliance and ethics programme, alleging the company had breached the DPA.

Federal prosecutors also said at the time Boeing had failed “to design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics programme to prevent and detect violations of the US fraud laws throughout its operations”.

Mr O'Connor rejected a previous plea deal Boeing reached with the Justice Department last July, saying at the time he was concerned about the government appointing a monitor that would be based on diversity, equity and inclusion policies.

A Boeing representative declined to comment.