Boeing Agrees to Plead Guilty to Criminal Fraud. Guess Who’s Going to Jail?

Boeing will plead guilty to criminal fraud charges dating to the years leading up to the crash of two 737 Max planes in 2018 and 2019, according to an announcement from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) on Sunday, first reported by the Associated Press. If the plea deal is accepted by a judge, the company will pay an additional fine of $243.6 million and nobody from Boeing will be going to jail. And family members of victims are not happy with the situation.

The charges stem from a Boeing 737 Max crash in 2018 that killed 189 in Indonesia and a crash in 2019 that killed 157 in Ethiopia. Subsequent investigations into Boeing revealed major concerns inside the company about the safety of its planes, with one employee writing about the Max in 2017, “this airplane is designed by clowns, who in turn are supervised by monkeys.”

Specifically, Boeing will plead guilty to a conspiracy to defraud the government by misleading the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) about the safety of its planes. The new agreement imposes a fine identical to the one it paid in a 2021 settlement with the Justice Department that allowed it to avoid criminal prosecution in the first place. But DOJ alleges Boeing violated the deal and it had until this weekend to plead guilty under the conditions set out by the department or face a trial.

“Miscarriage of justice is a gross understatement in describing this,” Zipporah Kuria, who lost her father Joseph in the Ethiopian Airlines crash in 2019, told CNN in a statement. “It is an atrocious abomination. I hope that, God forbid, if this happens again the DOJ is reminded that it had the opportunity to do something meaningful and instead chose not to.”

Boeing confirmed to Gizmodo on Monday that the company had reached a deal in principle with the DOJ, “subject to the memorialization and approval of specific terms.” But Boeing’s problems are far from over. As the AP notes, the plea deal only covers conduct before the two crashes and doesn’t give immunity for any other recent issues, like the incident in January when a door plug just fell off a 737 Max flight operated by Alaska Airlines.

All of this comes as the FAA has ordered an inspection of the oxygen masks on 2,600 Boeing planes, according to a new report from Reuters. The concern is that masks on 737 MAX and NG are shifting out of position, which doesn’t allow them to work properly.

The DOJ didn’t immediately respond to questions on Monday. Gizmodo will update this post if we hear back.