Boeing pleads not guilty to charge over jet crashes

Aviation giant Boeing pleaded not guilty Thursday in a Texas court to a fraud charge related to a flight control system that caused two major crashes. The 2018 crash in Indonesia and the 2019 crash in Ethiopia together killed 346 people and led to a 20-month grounding for the Boeing 737 Max jet. Boeing avoided criminal prosecution in January 2021 by accepting a plea deal with the Justice Department. The company agreed to pay $2.5 billion in fines, including $500 million to the families.

Why is the case being revisited? U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled in October that the settlement violated victims’ rights law by not informing the victims’ families of the deal negotiations. The Texas court on Thursday heard testimony from the families of people killed in the crashes, and Boeing entered a not-guilty plea to the criminal fraud charge. The families have requested that a court-picked monitor should evaluate whether Boeing is creating a culture of safety and ethics. 

Dig deeper: From the WORLD archives, read Kyle Ziemnick’s report from the WORLD archives on Boeing’s response to issues with its 737 Max jets.