The U.S. Justice Department will criminally charge Boeing with fraud over two fatal crashes and ask the planemaker to plead guilty or face a trial, Reuters quoted two people familiar with the matter as saying.
The US Justice Department planned to formally offer a plea agreement to Boeing, which includes a financial penalty and imposition of an independent monitor to audit the company’s safety and compliance practices for three years, the sources said.
Justice Department officials plan to give Boeing until the end of the week to respond to the offer, which they will present as nonnegotiable, the sources said
Should Boeing refuse to plead guilty, prosecutors plan to take the company to trial, they said.
Boeing and the Justice Department declined to comment. Reuters was first to report the Justice
Department’s decision to prosecute Boeing and seek a guilty plea.
The Justice Department decided to charge Boeing after finding it violated a 2021 agreement that had shielded it from prosecution over the fatal crashes involving 737 MAX jets. The deadly crashes took place in 2018 and 2019, killing 346 people including two Nigerians, the academic, Prof Pius Adesanmi and Ambassador Abiodun Bashua who died on March 10, 2019 in an Ethiopian Airlines crash.
The decision to move toward criminally charging Boeing deepens an ongoing crisis engulfing the planemaker, exposing the company to additional financial ramifications and tougher government oversight.
