SAN FRANCISCO: The US Justice Department on Tuesday said Boeing can be prosecuted for two subsequent 737 Max crashes that killed 346 people approximately five years ago.
US officials said in their letter that Boeing breached its obligations under a deferred prosecution agreement by"failing to design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the US fraud laws throughout its operations." US officials also plan to confer with families of people who died in the Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashes.
In March of 2019, a Boeing 737 MAX 8 operated by Ethiopian Airlines crashed southeast of Addis Ababa, killing the 157 people on board. Both aircraft crashed shortly after takeoff, with investigations later pointing to trouble with the automated flight system."We will engage with the Department with the utmost transparency, as we have throughout the entire term of the agreement," Boeing said in a statement to AFP.The US Federal Aviation Administration was sharply criticized after the crashes of two Boeing 737 MAX planes in 2018 and 2019.