A lawyer representing victims of two fatal Boeing 737 Max crashes has told the BBC that the US government is preparing to offer the plane maker a “sweetheart plea deal”.
Paul Cassell, who said he received the information “directly from the Department of Justice,” added that the deal includes a small fine, three years of probation and an independent safety audit.
Boeing did not immediately respond to the BBC’s request for comment, while the Department of Justice (DoJ) declined to make a statement.
Last month, US prosecutors ask DoJ to bring criminal charges against aircraft manufacturers.
The announcement comes after the Justice Department said Boeing violated a 2021 settlement related to crashes that killed 346 people.
“Remembering the 346 innocent people killed by Boeing requires more justice than this,” Mr. Cassell said, adding that “the families will strongly oppose this plea agreement.”
The two plane crashes – both involving Boeing’s 737 Max aircraft – occurred six months apart.
The crash involving Indonesia’s Lion Air occurred in October 2018, followed by an Ethiopian Airlines flight in March 2019.
Both accidents were related to flight control system errors.
ONE letter sent last month Mr Cassell’s letter to the Ministry of Justice revealed that the families had sought to prosecute senior Boeing executives at the time of the crash and impose a $24.8bn (£19.6bn) fine ) for “the deadliest corporate crime in US history”.
The Justice Department has until July 7 to decide whether to revive criminal fraud charges against Boeing in 2021.
That allegation has been dormant since the company admitted in a settlement that it misled aviation safety regulators about some aspects of the 737 Max and promised to create a new compliance system to detect and prevent further fraud.
Under the settlement reached in 2021, Boeing said it would pay $2.5 billion in compensation and prosecutors agreed to ask the court to drop the criminal charges after three years if the company complied with a Certain provisions are contained in the deferred prosecution agreement.
But in May, the DoJ said Boeing had violated the agreement, claiming it had failed to “design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of U.S. fraud laws throughout its operations.”
Earlier this year, Boeing made headlines again when a door panel fell off a new 737 Max plane during an Alaska Airlines flight.
