Families of some of the people who died in two Boeing 737 MAX crashes are asking US officials to fine Boeing US$24.8 billion and move quickly to prosecute the company on a criminal charge that was set aside three years ago.
A lawyer for the families in a letter on Wednesday to the US Department of Justice said that a large fine is justified “because Boeing’s crime is the deadliest corporate crime in US history.”
The lawyer, Paul Cassell, also wrote that the US government should prosecute officials who were leading Boeing at the time of the crashes in 2018 and 2019, including then-CEO Dennis Muilenburg. In all, 346 people were killed in the crashes.
Photo: Reuters
The first crash occurred when a Boeing 737 MAX 8 operated by Indonesia’s Lion Air plunged into the Java Sea in October 2018. The second crash occurred in March 2019, when an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX 8 crashed nearly straight down into a field six minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
The push by the families comes as the US department considers whether to revive a dormant criminal charge of fraud against Boeing. Last month, prosecutors determined that the company violated a 2021 settlement that protected it from being prosecuted for allegedly misleading regulators who approved the MAX.
The department has until July 7 to tell a federal judge in Texas whether it would revive the case. During a hearing on Tuesday, US Senator Richard Blumenthal said there is “mounting evidence” that the company should be prosecuted.
Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company previously has said it met its obligations under the 2021 settlement.
The US department opened an investigation into Boeing after a door plug blew off a 737 MAX during an Alaska Airlines flight in January. That incident led to increased scrutiny of the company and outgoing CEO David Calhoun, who defended Boeing’s safety record during Tuesday’s US Senate hearing.
The Philippines yesterday said its coast guard would acquire 40 fast patrol craft from France, with plans to deploy some of them in disputed areas of the South China Sea. The deal is the “largest so far single purchase” in Manila’s ongoing effort to modernize its coast guard, with deliveries set to start in four years, Philippine Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Ronnie Gil Gavan told a news conference. He declined to provide specifications for the vessels, which Manila said would cost 25.8 billion pesos (US$440 million), to be funded by development aid from the French government. He said some of the vessels would
CARGO PLANE VECTOR: Officials said they believe that attacks involving incendiary devices on planes was the work of Russia’s military intelligence agency the GRU Western security officials suspect Russian intelligence was behind a plot to put incendiary devices in packages on cargo planes headed to North America, including one that caught fire at a courier hub in Germany and another that ignited in a warehouse in England. Poland last month said that it had arrested four people suspected to be linked to a foreign intelligence operation that carried out sabotage and was searching for two others. Lithuania’s prosecutor general Nida Grunskiene on Tuesday said that there were an unspecified number of people detained in several countries, offering no elaboration. The events come as Western officials say
A plane bringing Israeli soccer supporters home from Amsterdam landed at Israel’s Ben Gurion airport on Friday after a night of violence that Israeli and Dutch officials condemned as “anti-Semitic.” Dutch police said 62 arrests were made in connection with the violence, which erupted after a UEFA Europa League soccer tie between Amsterdam club Ajax and Maccabi Tel Aviv. Israeli flag carrier El Al said it was sending six planes to the Netherlands to bring the fans home, after the first flight carrying evacuees landed on Friday afternoon, the Israeli Airports Authority said. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu also ordered
Former US House of Representatives speaker Nancy Pelosi said if US President Joe Biden had ended his re-election bid sooner, the Democratic Party could have held a competitive nominating process to choose his replacement. “Had the president gotten out sooner, there may have been other candidates in the race,” Pelosi said in an interview on Thursday published by the New York Times the next day. “The anticipation was that, if the president were to step aside, that there would be an open primary,” she said. Pelosi said she thought the Democratic candidate, US Vice President Kamala Harris, “would have done