Boeing will plead guilty to a criminal fraud charge stemming from two crashes of its 737 Max jetliners that killed 346 people, the Justice Department said late on July 7, and it will pay of fine of $243.6 million. But the plea deal allows Boeing to avoid facing a criminal trial on more serious charges. Some of the families of the victims of the plane crashes angrily called this a sweet-heart deal that let Boeing escape the more serious punishment. Several of them held a demonstration at the Texas courthouse where the plea deal was being worked out..
The trial reveals Boeing’s descent from a once proud engineering- and production-driven company, into a company that engaged in cost-cutting and pouring money into stock buy-backs. As such, it well typifies the degradation of the whole U.S. physical economy.
On Oct. 29, 2018, a Boeing 737 Max jetliner operated by an Indonesian airline crashed in good weather, minutes after takeoff, killing all 189 people on board. On March 10, 2019, a Boeing 737 Max jet operated by an Ethiopian airline crashed six minutes after take-off, killing 157 people. It was found that a malfunctioning sensor sent faulty data to the Boeing 737 Max 8’s anti-stall system and triggered a chain of events that ended in both crashes. The U.S. government offered Boeing a 2021 settlement, which exempted the company from further criminal prosecution.
