Boeing now faces criminal trial for two 737-Max crashes that killed 346
In a criminal case against Boeing that has been going on since two Boeing 737-Max planes crashed in 2018 and 2019, the company now faces a criminal trial scheduled to begin in June over its admitted lies to the FAA about the airplane’s technical flaws that led directly to those crashes.
[T]he criminal charge pending against Boeing arises out of two deadly crashes of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in 2018 and 2019. A Justice Department investigation uncovered the fact that Boeing had lied to the FAA about the safety of the aircraft—lies that led directly and proximately to the crashes killing 346 passengers and crew. On January 7, 2021, the Justice Department filed a criminal information with a one-count conspiracy charge against Boeing, alleging that “From at least in or around November 2016 through at least in or around December 2018, in the Northern District of Texas and elsewhere, the Defendant, The Boeing Company, knowingly and willfully, and with the intent to defraud, conspired and agreed together with others to defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing, defeating, and interfering with, by dishonest means, the lawful function of a United States government agency.”
In 2021 Boeing admitted to these charges as part of a plea deal with Justice, whereby prosecution would be deferred for three years if Boeing took certain actions to clean up its act. When that deal expired in 2024, Justice determined that Boeing had failed to live up to its agreement. Rather than go to criminal trial however government lawyers instead attempted twice to settle the case by having Boeing pay a big fine, first $243 million and then $455 million. In both cases the deals fell through when lawyers for the victims’ families objected.
After many further delays, the judge in the case has now taken action and set a trial date of June 23, 2025.
The article at the link is written by one of the lawyers for the victims, so it of course has a very decidedly anti-Boeing slant. Nonetheless, the situation for the company is very dire. It has already admitted guilt in the 2021 plea deal. It will be practically impossible for it to avoid a guilty sentence at that trial, resulting in gigantic payouts that could very well bankrupt the company.
I wonder however if instead of charging just the company, a corporation, the Justice Department should also have indicted the specific individuals at Boeing who committed the fraud itself. Those people are the ones responsible, not the entire company. Leaving them out of the case allows them to literally get away with the equivalent of second degree murder for “depraved indifference.”
For example, the CEO of Boeing at the time of those 737-Max crashes, Dennis Muilenburg, was fired in 2019 shortly after the crashes, suggesting the company was aware of his culpability in the situation. And what about the specific managers who filed false reports with the FAA? Do they all get off scot free?
As it stands now, the case is likely to destroy Boeing itself, harming thousands of innocent employees who had nothing to do with this fraud or the 737-Max. It will also do great harm to Boeing’s many other contracts with the government, NASA, and other private airline companies.
Then again, maybe it is time for this company to go. It surely hasn’t demonstrated in the past decade any ability to build anything reliably.
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In a criminal case against Boeing that has been going on since two Boeing 737-Max planes crashed in 2018 and 2019, the company now faces a criminal trial scheduled to begin in June over its admitted lies to the FAA about the airplane’s technical flaws that led directly to those crashes.
[T]he criminal charge pending against Boeing arises out of two deadly crashes of Boeing 737 MAX aircraft in 2018 and 2019. A Justice Department investigation uncovered the fact that Boeing had lied to the FAA about the safety of the aircraft—lies that led directly and proximately to the crashes killing 346 passengers and crew. On January 7, 2021, the Justice Department filed a criminal information with a one-count conspiracy charge against Boeing, alleging that “From at least in or around November 2016 through at least in or around December 2018, in the Northern District of Texas and elsewhere, the Defendant, The Boeing Company, knowingly and willfully, and with the intent to defraud, conspired and agreed together with others to defraud the United States by impairing, obstructing, defeating, and interfering with, by dishonest means, the lawful function of a United States government agency.”
In 2021 Boeing admitted to these charges as part of a plea deal with Justice, whereby prosecution would be deferred for three years if Boeing took certain actions to clean up its act. When that deal expired in 2024, Justice determined that Boeing had failed to live up to its agreement. Rather than go to criminal trial however government lawyers instead attempted twice to settle the case by having Boeing pay a big fine, first $243 million and then $455 million. In both cases the deals fell through when lawyers for the victims’ families objected.
After many further delays, the judge in the case has now taken action and set a trial date of June 23, 2025.
The article at the link is written by one of the lawyers for the victims, so it of course has a very decidedly anti-Boeing slant. Nonetheless, the situation for the company is very dire. It has already admitted guilt in the 2021 plea deal. It will be practically impossible for it to avoid a guilty sentence at that trial, resulting in gigantic payouts that could very well bankrupt the company.
I wonder however if instead of charging just the company, a corporation, the Justice Department should also have indicted the specific individuals at Boeing who committed the fraud itself. Those people are the ones responsible, not the entire company. Leaving them out of the case allows them to literally get away with the equivalent of second degree murder for “depraved indifference.”
For example, the CEO of Boeing at the time of those 737-Max crashes, Dennis Muilenburg, was fired in 2019 shortly after the crashes, suggesting the company was aware of his culpability in the situation. And what about the specific managers who filed false reports with the FAA? Do they all get off scot free?
As it stands now, the case is likely to destroy Boeing itself, harming thousands of innocent employees who had nothing to do with this fraud or the 737-Max. It will also do great harm to Boeing’s many other contracts with the government, NASA, and other private airline companies.
Then again, maybe it is time for this company to go. It surely hasn’t demonstrated in the past decade any ability to build anything reliably.
Readers!
My annual February birthday fund-raising drive for Behind the Black is now over. Thank you to everyone who donated or subscribed. While not a record-setter, the donations were more than sufficient and slightly above average.
As I have said many times before, I can’t express what it means to me to get such support, especially as no one is required to pay anything to read my work. Thank you all again!
For those readers who like my work here at Behind the Black and haven't contributed so far, please consider donating or subscribing. My analysis of space, politics, and culture, taken from the perspective of an historian, is almost always on the money and ahead of the game. For example, in 2020 I correctly predicted that the COVID panic was unnecessary, that the virus was apparently simply a variation of the flu, that masks were not simply pointless but if worn incorrectly were a health threat, that the lockdowns were a disaster and did nothing to stop the spread of COVID. Every one of those 2020 conclusions has turned out right.
Your help allows me to do this kind of intelligent analysis. I take no advertising or sponsors, so my reporting isn't influenced by donations by established space or drug companies. Instead, I rely entirely on donations and subscriptions from my readers, which gives me the freedom to write what I think, unencumbered by outside influences.
You can support me either by giving a one-time contribution or a regular subscription. There are four ways of doing so:
1. Zelle: This is the only internet method that charges no fees. All you have to do is use the Zelle link at your internet bank and give my name and email address (zimmerman at nasw dot org). What you donate is what I get.
2. Patreon: Go to my website there and pick one of five monthly subscription amounts, or by making a one-time donation.
3. A Paypal Donation or subscription:
4. Donate by check, payable to Robert Zimmerman and mailed to
Behind The Black
c/o Robert Zimmerman
P.O.Box 1262
Cortaro, AZ 85652
You can also support me by buying one of my books, as noted in the boxes interspersed throughout the webpage or shown in the menu above.
The terrible thing is that the 737 Max would have been OK without the MCAS. It was only right near the stall, flaps up that the stick force gradient leveled off. MCAS was added to meet the certification requirement that the stick force keep increasing.
Death by regulation.
Pilots who don’t know the memory item for a trim runaway doesn’t help (flick two switches on the back of the center console). There are several other failure modes that can crash the aircraft similar to MCAS.
Bankrupting Boeing at trial won’t make the company’s assets evaporate. To meet a penalty large enough to bankrupt the company there is always Chapter 7 of the Bankruptcy Code which allows for orderly liquidation. In such a case, current shareholders would get little or nothing and the company’s assets would be auctioned to new owners, either piecemeal or as a whole. In the latter case, the former Boeing would get a new management cadre and be able to resume operations. In the former case, the same would also happen, but for more than one company, each a former Boeing division. Commercial Airplanes seems the most straightforwardly able to continue as a unit, but Defense, Space & Security would also likely be viable as a new standalone outfit, though I suspect any new owners would prune it pretty aggressively. Any other current Boeing divisions or subsidiaries that lack the ability to make it as standalone entities would simply be parted out and closed.
Criminal charges against a “company”.
If it’s monetary damages that are the only penalty, then that isn’t much of a “criminal” proceeding is it?
Honestly I don’t know. I would think if you were “criminally” prosecuting you’d be after the individuals who were responsible, instead of causing thousands of innocent stockholders the income they get from their shares in BOEING.
This so sounds like just another “anti-business” Judge screwing over people’s income, rather any attempt at some kind of “justice”.
but again, I don’t know. What I do know is that by going after the company the real culprits go free and unharmed.
What kind of Justice is that?
Mike Borgelt is correct. The bankruptcy system exists, in part, to create an option to keep a company doing what society needs it to do.. It mainly harms the equity holders(the stockholders), management and creditors. That is why when you hear calls to absolve a company of responsibility or get calls for a public bailout of a company, you have to ask who is getting bailed out. If it is done outside the bankruptcy process, perhaps that is because it is management or the stockholders that are the real beneficiaries. Unions also play a role because union contracts are alterable in bankruptcy. Yet I don’t heat this question being asked loudly enough when these things happen. Why is that? This is a real question, not a rhetorical trick. If a company is too important to let fail, why is the public assistance not administered through the bankruptcy process? Perhaps there is a legitimate reason I cannot think of.