Families of Boeing Crash Victims Can Challenge U.S. Settlement, Judge Rules

The relatives of some of the crash victims said the deferred prosecution agreement between the Justice Department and the company violated their rights. The deal, which resolved a criminal charge that Boeing had conspired to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration, was struck last year in the waning days of the Trump administration.

As a result, Boeing agreed to establish a $500 million fund to compensate the families of those who died, pay a fine of nearly $244 million and pay $1.77 billion in compensation to airlines. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland participated in a video call with some of the victims’ families and their representatives in January but has stood by the deal.

In October 2018, one of the Max jetliners, Lion Air Flight 610, crashed minutes after taking off from Jakarta, Indonesia, killing 189 people. Then in March 2019, another Max, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, crashed, also just minutes after takeoff, killing all 157 people on board.

The criminal case against the company revolved around the actions of two employees who withheld information from the F.A.A., which regulates Boeing and evaluates its planes, about changes made to flight-stabilizing software known as MCAS. The software was later implicated in both crashes.

The families “have established adequate direct causal connection between Boeing’s criminal conspiracy and the resulting crashes,” Judge O’Connor wrote in the ruling on Friday.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/21/business/boeing-families-crime-victims.html