The government will drop its prosecution against Boeing over its role in two deadly 737 crashes that killed 346 people. Just weeks before the aircraft manufacturer was set to face trial, Boeing entered into a non-prosecution agreement with the Justice Department, agreeing to pay more than $1.1 billion, including a $445 million fund for crash victims and another $445 million for compliance, safety, and quality programs. In October 2018, a Lion Air 737 flight crashed over Indonesia’s Java Sea, killing all 189 people on board. Five months later, in March 2019, an Ethiopian Airlines 737 flight also crashed, killing all 157 people on board. The families of victims from both crashes have long lobbied the DOJ to prosecute Boeing, and last year, the manufacturer agreed to plead guilty to criminal fraud for misleading regulators to get approval for a new in-flight control system that later played a role in both crashes, despite safety concerns. However, a federal judge later rejected the plea deal. Regarding today’s non-prosecution agreement, an attorney for some of the families told CNBC it was “unprecedented and obviously wrong for the deadliest corporate crime in US history” and said his clients plan to object. The Justice Department claims 110 other families supported the move to resolve the case pre-trial.
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