US government to offer Boeing ‘sweetheart deal’, lawyer says

A lawyer representing victims of two fatal Boeing 737 Max crashes has told the BBC that the US government is preparing to offer the planemaker a “sweetheart plea deal”.

Paul Cassell, who said he got the information “directly from the Department of Justice,” added that the deal includes a small fine, three years of probation and independent safety audits.

Boeing did not immediately respond to the BBC’s request for comment, while the Department of Justice (DoJ) declined to make a statement.

It comes as Boeing announced it had reached a deal to buy aerospace supplier Spirit AeroSystems – a move it said would improve quality and safety.

Spirit made the fuselage that suffered a mid-flight explosion on an Alaska Airlines 737 Max 9 jet in January, sparking widespread concern about standards at Boeing.

That came after the DoJ said Boeing violated a 2021 settlement related to the crashes that killed 346 people.

“The memory of the 346 innocent people killed by Boeing demands more justice than this,” Cassell said, adding that “the families will vigorously oppose this plea agreement.”

The plane crashes – both involving Boeing 737 Max jets – occurred six months apart.

The accident involving Indonesian airline Lion Air occurred in October 2018, followed by an Ethiopian Airlines flight in March 2019.

Both accidents were linked to faulty flight control systems.

A letter sent last month by Mr Cassell at the DoJ revealed that the families were seeking to sue Boeing executives at the time of the crashes and seek a $24.8bn (£19.6bn) fine for “corporate crime deadliest in American history.

The Justice Department has until July 7 to decide whether to revive a criminal fraud charge brought against Boeing in 2021.

That charge has remained pending since the company acknowledged in a settlement that it misled air safety regulators about aspects of the 737 Max and promised to create a new compliance system to detect and prevent further fraud.

As part of the deal reached in 2021, Boeing said it would pay a $2.5 billion settlement and prosecutors agreed to ask the court to drop criminal charges after three years if the company complies certain stipulations set out in the deferred prosecution agreement.

But in May, the Justice Department said Boeing had violated the agreement, saying it failed to “design, implement and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of U.S. fraud laws throughout its operations.”