By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Boeing is in discussions with the U.S. Department of Justice to reach a revised plea agreement in a criminal fraud case stemming from the planemaker’s alleged misrepresentations to regulators about a key system on the 737 MAX, company CEO Kelly Ortberg said on Wednesday.
Ortberg said at a Senate hearing Boeing is in discussions with the Justice Department to come up with an alternate agreement after the initial deal was not accepted by a judge.
“I want this resolved as fast as anybody,” Ortberg said. “Hopefully, we’ll have a new agreement here soon.”
In July, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge after two fatal 737 MAX crashes and to pay a fine of up to $487.2 million. A judge set a June 23 trial date if no final agreement is reached.
Boeing’s plea deal struck last year included spending $455 million to improve safety and compliance practices over three years of court-supervised probation as well as supervision by an independent monitor for three years.
Relatives of the victims of the two 737 MAX crashes, which occurred in 2018 and 2019 and killed 346 people, have called the plea agreement a “sweetheart” deal that failed to adequately hold Boeing accountable for the deaths of their loved ones.
An accepted plea deal would brand Boeing a convicted felon for conspiring to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration about problematic software affecting the flight control systems in the planes that crashed during the MAX’s certification.
In May, the DOJ found Boeing had violated a 2021 agreement that had shielded it from prosecution over the crashes. Prosecutors then decided to criminally charge Boeing and negotiate the current plea deal.
The decision followed the January 2024 in-flight blowout of a door panel on a new Alaska Airlines’ 737 MAX 9.
Senator Maria Cantwell asked about a report that Boeing does not want to face oversight of an independent corporate monitor as part of a new plea deal.
“I don’t want to prejudge what the outcome of those discussions is going to be. I don’t personally have a problem, no,” Ortberg said.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Marguerita Choy)
