Aviation industry|The company settled the matter with the US Department of Justice.
Aircraft manufacturer Boeing has agreed to plead guilty to fraud, reports the news agency Reuters.
The company tentatively agreed on the issue with the US Department of Justice. In May, the ministry had said that Boeing had violated previous agreementwith which the company had previously avoided criminal prosecution.
According to court documents, Boeing admits to having misled the aviation authorities who issued the flight permit for the Boeing 737 Max aircraft type, according to US media who have seen the documents. CNN and The New York Times. In 2018–2019, two planes of this type were involved in disastrous plane accidents in Indonesia and Ethiopia. A total of 346 people died in the accidents.
By confessing, Boeing avoids a lawsuit that would have exposed the company to even greater public scrutiny.
According to the agreement, Boeing would pay a fine of 243.6 million dollars, or almost 225 million euros, Reuters reports.
The company would also pledge to invest at least $455 million over the next three years to strengthen its safety and compliance programs. The Ministry of Justice would appoint an external monitor for three years to monitor Boeing’s compliance with the requirements.
Plane crash victims the families are “very disappointed” with the agreement, the lawyer who represented them tells the news agency AFP. According to Reuters, the relatives have wanted a trial and demanded tougher financial consequences.
According to Reuters, the fraud case could hinder, for example, the company’s chances of getting contracts with the US Defense Administration. According to Reuters, Boeing receives a large part of its income from these contracts.
The lawyer representing the families of the accident victims interviewed by The New York Times Mark Lindquist believes, however, that Boeing received an assurance from the Ministry of Justice that the criminal conviction would not affect the company’s contracts with the public administration.
Getting a criminal conviction is still a hard blow to the company’s reputation, which has also been tarnished by the accident that happened earlier this year.
At the beginning of the year, part of the fuselage of Boeing’s 737 Max 9 model came off, and the Alaska Airlines plane made an emergency landing with a gaping hole in its side. After the incident, Boeing received an order from the US authorities to take measures to solve the safety problems of the company’s machines.
Correction 8.7. 10:18 a.m.: Contrary to what was previously claimed in the headline, Boeing is not an airline but an aircraft manufacturer.
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