DOJ may drop case against Boeing over deadly 737 Max crashes, despite families' outrage

[mahatmakanejeeves]

Source: NPR

NATIONAL
DOJ may drop case against Boeing over deadly 737 Max crashes, despite families' outrage

MAY 16, 2025 5:22 PM ET
Joel Rose


Relatives of victims hold a placard with photos of victims of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crash in March 2019, prior to a hearing in Fort Worth, Texas, in January 2023.
Shelby Tauber/AFP via Getty Images

WASHINGTON -- The Department of Justice is considering dropping its criminal case against Boeing over two fatal crashes of 737 Max jets, according to lawyers for family members of the crash victims who met with prosecutors on Friday.

Boeing agreed last year to plead guilty to defrauding regulators after the crashes of two 737 Max jets, in 2018 and 2019, that killed 346 people. But a federal judge rejected that proposed plea deal.

Now the Justice Department is weighing another agreement that would allow Boeing to avoid criminal prosecution. The company would agree instead to a non-criminal settlement that would include $444.5 million for a crash victims' fund.

Lawyers for some of the family members say they're outraged by the proposed deal, and said they plan to fight it in court. ... "This isn't justice," Erin Applebaum, an attorney at the firm Kreindler & Kreindler, said in a statement. "It's a backroom deal dressed up as a legal proceeding, and it sends a dangerous message: in America, the rich and powerful can buy their way out of accountability."

{snip}


Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/05/16/g-s1-67245/doj-boeing-737-max-crashes-deal-prosecution-plane

[live love laugh]

1. How many of the family members voted for this?

[PJMcK]

2. Honest question

What do the victims’ families want as compensation? Their relatives are dead. Do they want to shutter Boeing? Or do they want more money than the $444 million mentioned? Do they want Boeing executives in jail? What would be considered justice?

Thanks, in advance.

[PSPS]

4. Criminal negligence was behind these tragedies.

There should be some liberty lost but, of course, white-collar criminals just buy their way out of any trouble.

[EX500rider]

6. I'd say some of the "criminal negligence" was on Ethiopian Airline for allowing a Co-pilot with 200 hrs to fly

Proper CRM would have saved the plane.

The first officer, Ahmednur Mohammed, aged 25, with 361 flight hours logged, including 207 hours on the Boeing 737.

The NTSB further detailed:
Appropriate crew management of the event, per the procedures that existed at the time, would have allowed the crew to recover the airplane even when faced with the uncommanded nose-down inputs.

[PSPS]

3. "may" means they have to increase the size of their "tribute"

[EX500rider]

5. The 1st crash was on them, the 2nd one not so much

The procedure to recover the plane was already released but not followed correctly by the Ethiopian pilots, the Co-pilot was woefully inexperienced, leaving the Captain task saturated.

The first officer, Ahmednur Mohammed, aged 25, had 361 flight hours logged, including 207 hours on the Boeing 737

NTSB findings:

Appropriate crew management of the event, per the procedures that existed at the time, would have allowed the crew to recover the airplane even when faced with the uncommanded nose-down inputs.

During the accident flight, the flight crew did not make appropriate use of the associated applicable procedures on which he had received training in the preceding months.

The Captain's attempts to engage AP was in contradiction with the Approach to Stall or Stall Recovery maneuver check list, which was expected to be applied in reaction to the stick shaker activation.

Degradation of the CRM which started immediately after the AOA vane failure and which didn't help the crew take the necessary actions to keep the plane under control although they had received an adequate recurrent training on situations that occurred in the accident flight.

The preliminary report asserts that the thrust remained at takeoff setting (94% N1) and the throttles did not move for the entire flight.

The full throttle setting made trimming near impossible.

Pilots have demonstrated in simulators that the trim wheels cannot be moved in severe mis-trim conditions combined with a high airspeed. As the pilots on Flight 302 pulled on the yoke to raise the nose, the aerodynamic forces on the tail's elevator would create an opposing force on the stabilizer trim jackscrew that would prevent the pilots from moving the trim wheel by hand.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethiopian_Airlines_Flight_302#Investigation

[bluestarone]

7. Bondi needs her ass pulled into court!

Sounds like she has no problem telling the supreme court to go to hell.