(New York) The American aircraft manufacturer Boeing, which has been struggling for several months to untangle its many problems, is preparing to take a crucial step in the criminal case linked to the 2018 and 2019 crashes that left 346 people dead.
The aircraft manufacturer received a proposal last week from the Department of Justice (DoJ), which promised to return “no later than July 7” to federal judge Reed O’Connor, who is handling the case in a Texas court.
The aircraft manufacturer is expected to indicate on Friday whether it accepts this proposal, according to several sources.
“The offer made to Boeing by the DoJ is to plead guilty to a pending criminal charge [déposée en 2021] for conspiracy to defraud the FAA,” the US aviation regulator, Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah and a lawyer for families in the criminal case, told AFP.
According to information that has leaked in recent days, it includes a fine of 243 million dollars, the appointment of an independent supervisor for three years and a guilty plea to fraud.
Boeing must now choose its course: accept this agreement – which the judge can refuse to validate but whose terms he cannot change – or risk a long criminal trial with an uncertain outcome. Because it seems very unlikely that it will be able to escape either of these two options.
Victims’ relatives and their lawyers were notified of the offer during a two-hour meeting Sunday with department officials.
“The families will vigorously oppose this deal,” Cassell warned.
Neither the department nor Boeing commented.
The case has resurfaced after a series of production and quality control problems, affecting, since the beginning of 2023, three of the four Boeing commercial aircraft currently on the market (737, 787 Dreamliner and 777).
Serial problems
And, above all, after an in-flight incident on January 5 on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9.
Among other consequences, this black series led the ministry to conclude in mid-May that Boeing had not respected its commitments provided for in a 58-page deferred prosecution agreement (DPA), concluded on January 7, 2021. Something the aircraft manufacturer continues to refute.
The aeronautics giant had admitted to fraud in the certification of the 737 MAX 8, which was involved in the two fatal accidents. All 737 MAXs were grounded for twenty months in the United States and around the world.
Under the deal, Boeing agreed to pay $2.5 billion and pledged, among other things, to strengthen its compliance program. It also provided for a three-year probation period, at the end of which the charges could be dropped if the company met certain conditions.
But audits and investigations launched after the January 5 incident identified non-compliance issues and gaps in the group’s quality control.
Several whistleblowers, including current and former Boeing employees, have recently publicly raised concerns. Merle Meyers, a 30-year-old Boeing employee, reiterated on CNN Thursday that defective parts — about “50,000” — had been installed on 787 Dreamliners.
The victims’ families have been up in arms against this arrangement from the start, loudly demanding a trial and conviction of Boeing.
“It’s more attractive to the DoJ to get the certainty of a plea deal than to go to trial,” Tracy Brammeier of Clifford Law Firm, which represents families in the civil case, told AFP.
According to her, the latter are particularly unhappy with the absence of an explicit causal link between the fraud acknowledged by Boeing and the crashes.
For John Coffee, a professor at Columbia University, an out-of-court settlement would have the advantage for both parties of “avoiding a humiliating defeat and being quick.”
But in such cases, “the general public often comes out of it feeling aggrieved,” he noted in a blog post earlier this week.
In addition to the difficulties arising from a criminal trial, a conviction could also deprive the aircraft manufacturer of lucrative government and military contracts, which generated a third of its turnover in 2023.