The U.S. Justice Department on Tuesday notified Boeing that it violated terms of a settlement that allowed it to duck criminal prosecution after two deadly 737 Max crashes, a development that leaves the company vulnerable to potential future charges.
The aerospace company breached the 2021 deferred prosecution agreement by failing to “design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the U.S. fraud laws throughout its operations,” federal prosecutors said in a letter filed in a Texas court.
Prosecutors said they had not decided what to do next, adding that they would alert the court about any new charges no later than July 7. Boeing has until June 13 to respond.
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In a statement to The Daily Beast on Tuesday, Boeing confirmed that it had received the Justice Department’s letter.
“We believe that we have honored the terms of that agreement, and look forward to the opportunity to respond to the Department on this issue,” it said. “As we do so, we will engage with the Department with the utmost transparency, as we have throughout the entire term of the agreement, including in response to their questions following the Alaska Airlines 1282 accident.”
After a two-year investigation, prosecutors charged Boeing with deceiving federal regulators about the capabilities of a new feature on its planes implicated in both the deadly crashes, which killed a combined 346 people in 2018 and 2019.
In January 2021, Boeing agreed to pay a $2.5 billion penalty, and undergo three years of monitoring, to settle the single charge of fraud.
But the plane-maker has been thrust back into an uncomfortable spotlight in recent months, beginning with the Jan. 5 mid-air blowout of a door plug on a 737 Max 9 operated by Alaska Airlines. A preliminary investigation by the National Transportation Safety Board released in February found that four bolts meant to hold the door plug in place were missing before the jet took off.
The next month, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Justice Department had quietly launched a criminal investigation into the blowout.
The families of the 346 crash victims have long held that they want to see Boeing properly held accountable for its role in the double tragedies, and have pushed for federal investigators to reopen their probe.
Paul Cassell, a professor of law at the University of Utah College of Law who is representing the families, called the Tuesday letter “a positive first step” in a statement.
“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,” he said.
