Families of Boeing 737 MAX Crash Victims Urge US for $24B Fine

Relatives of the victims of two tragic Boeing, 737 MAX Crash asked for the Justice Department on Wednesday to seek a $24.78 billion fine from the plane maker and to proceed with a criminal prosecution.

“Because Boeing’s crime is the largest corporate crime in American history, a possible fine of more than $24 billion is justified,” said Paul Cassel, the lawyer representing 15 families, in a letter to the Justice Department issued on Wednesday.

According to the families, the Justice Department might postpone $14 billion to $22 billion of the penalties. This postponement is contingent on an agreement that Boeing commit those suspended funds to independent corporate monitors and related improvements in compliance and safety.

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In May, the Justice Department ruled that Boeing breached a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement. This agreement protected the corporation from facing felony charges of conspiracy to commit fraud stemming from deadly crashes between 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.

Boeing last week informed the authorities that it had not violated the agreement. Federal prosecutors have until July 7 to advise a federal judge in Texas about their plans, which could include pursuing a criminal prosecution or reaching a plea agreement with Boeing.

The Justice Department might potentially extend the deferred prosecution agreement by a year.

Justice Department authorities determined that Boeing breached the deferred prosecution agreement after a tribunal rejected a new Alaska Airlines, Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet on January 5, only two days before the 2021 deal expired. The event revealed ongoing safety and quality shortcomings at Boeing.

In the letter, the families also demanded that Boeing’s board of directors meet with them and that the department “begin criminal prosecutions of the guilty corporate officials at Boeing at the point of the two crashes.”

Boeing and the Justice Department were slow to respond.

During a hearing on Tuesday, Senator Richard Blumenthal, chair of the Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, made a statement to Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun. Blumenthal, a former prosecutor, stated his belief that authorities should pursue prosecutions, citing nearly conclusive evidence.

Two tragic Boeing 737 MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia in 2018 and 2019 grounded the best-selling plane worldwide for 20 months. The two tragic collisions were linked to a safety mechanism known as MCAS.