Boeing will plead guilty to fraud surrounding a settlement that the American aircraft manufacturer reached with the justice system in the United States. The aircraft manufacturer admits to violating the terms of the settlement surrounding two fatal crashes involving the troubled 737 MAX aircraft. The US Department of Justice announced this.

Boeing and Justice already reached a settlement in 2021 regarding the two fatal accidents from 2018 and 2019. But the Ministry of Justice concluded that Boeing violated obligations under that agreement. As a result, the company could still be prosecuted for the two crashes, in which 346 people died.

If the agreement is approved by a federal judge, the aircraft manufacturer will officially be a convicted criminal. Boeing will also pay a fine of $243.6 million, a US Justice Department official said.

The guilty plea could potentially prevent lucrative government contracts with, among others, the US Department of Defense and the space agency NASA. Yet Boeing is avoiding a lengthy criminal trial that would reveal the company's decisions surrounding the fatal plane crashes to the general public.

Boeing has been under scrutiny again since the beginning of this year after an aircraft lost a door panel shortly after takeoff. There have also been defects with his spaceship Starliner.

The fatal crashes took place in Ethiopia and Indonesia. A defect in sensors of a safety system played a role in the crashes. Instead of protecting the aircraft from a climb that is too steep, this so-called MCAS system kept pushing the nose of the aircraft down.

Due to recent technical problems at Boeing, there has been a lot of unrest at the top of the company. CEO Dave Calhoun will resign at the end of this year. Other top executives have also resigned. Regulators are now paying much closer attention to quality at Boeing.

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* Origin: AVIATION ECHO HQ (2:292/854)