FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — Carrying photos of their loved ones into court Wednesday, family members of victims killed in Boeing 737 Max crashes urged a judge to reject a deal that would spare the company from criminal prosecution.
Some of the relatives of the 346 victims — killed in crashes off the coast of Indonesia and in Ethiopia less than five months apart in 2018 and 2019 — saw the hearing as their final chance to demand a public trial.
That's because U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor is weighing whether to approve the federal government’s motion to dismiss its criminal case against Boeing. The judge said Wednesday after hearing from the relatives and attorneys for both the Justice Department and Boeing that he would issue a decision at a later date.
In exchange, the company said it would pay or invest another $1.1 billion in fines, compensation for the crash victims’ families, and internal safety and quality measures.
“What part of this screams justice?” said David Moore, whose 24-year-old sister, Danielle, was among the 157 passengers and crew members killed in the Ethiopia crash. Moore traveled from Toronto with his parents to attend the hearing in Fort Worth.
Boeing is charged with conspiracy to defraud the U.S. government after allegedly misleading Federal Aviation Administration regulators about a flight-control system tied to the crashes.
Wednesday's hearing came more than four years after the Justice Department announced it had charged Boeing and reached a $2.5 billion settlement with the aircraft maker. That deal would have protected Boeing from criminal prosecution if it strengthened its ethics and legal compliance programs, but prosecutors revived the charge last year after deciding the company had violated certain terms of the agreement.
Victims' families are divided
Boeing decided to plead guilty as part of a different agreement, but O’Connor rejected that deal in December.
Prosecutors spent months renegotiating with Boeing, and in late May, the two sides struck the latest deal that takes both the criminal charge and Boeing’s guilty plea off the table.
The Justice Department said it offered those terms in light of “significant changes” Boeing has made to its quality control and anti-fraud programs since last summer. It said the agreement also served the public interest more effectively than taking the long-running case to trial and risking a jury verdict that might spare the company further punishment.
More than a dozen relatives spoke Wednesday, some of whom traveled to Texas from as far as Europe and Africa. They are among nearly 100 families who oppose the agreement and want the judge to appoint a special prosecutor to take over the case since the Justice Department said it would not move forward with the charge even if O’Connor refuses to dismiss it, according to court documents.
Catherine Berthet, who traveled from France, asked the judge to send the case to trial.
“Do not allow Boeing to buy its freedom," she said. Her daughter, Camille, also died when a 737 Max crashed shortly after takeoff from Ethiopia’s Addis Ababa Bole International Airport.
Attorneys for both the Justice Department and Boeing on Wednesday urged the judge to accept the agreement.
Justice Department lawyers say the families of 110 crash victims either support resolving the case before it reaches trial or do not oppose the new deal. It has also asked the judge to leave open the possibility of refiling the conspiracy charge if the company does not hold up its end of the deal over the next two years.
While federal judges typically defer to the discretion of prosecutors in such situations, court approval is not automatic.
Faulty software is at the center of the case
The yearslong case centers around a software system that Boeing developed for the 737 Max, which began flying in 2017.
In both of the deadly crashes, that software pitched the nose of the plane down repeatedly based on faulty readings from a single sensor, and pilots flying for Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines were unable to regain control. After the Ethiopia crash, the planes were grounded worldwide for 20 months.
Investigators found that Boeing did not inform key Federal Aviation Administration personnel about changes it had made to the software before regulators set pilot training requirements for the Max and certified the airliner for flight.
The initial 2021 settlement agreement was on the verge of expiring last year when a panel covering an unused emergency exit blew off a 737 Max during an Alaska Airlines flight over Oregon. No one was seriously injured, but it put Boeing’s safety record under renewed scrutiny.
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Yamat reported from Las Vegas.
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