DALLAS — A North Texas U.S. District judge Friday questioned Boeing’s $2.5 billion deferred plea deal in the 737 Max investigation because government prosecutors didn’t seek the input of the family members of the victims of crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people in Indonesia and Ethiopia.
Nearly three years after the plane was grounded and more than 18 months after airlines brought the aircraft back into service, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled Friday that the Justice Department’s deal with the aircraft manufacturer violated a federal law requiring the input of victims in such deals.
Now the court will have to go back and decide what if anything can be done to preserve the deal that sent more than $1.77 billion to airlines and $500 million to crash victim families, but also helped Boeing executives avoid criminal liability in the case.
