Boeing executives could still face criminal charges over the fatal 2018 and 2019 737 MAX crashes, U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) officials told the victims’ family members during a May 31 meeting.
The Justice Department met with the families and their attorneys for the second time since late April to discuss the agency’s plans after it announced in May that Boeing violated a 2021 criminal settlement.
That settlement, or deferred prosecution agreement, would have waived criminal charges against the aerospace company for the 2018 and 2019 737 MAX 8 crashes that killed 346 people if Boeing stayed in compliance until Jan. 7, two days after a door panel ripped off an Alaskan Airlines flight minutes after takeoff. Boeing was initially charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States.
During the May 31 meeting, Justice Department officials said they have not yet decided “how to proceed against Boeing going forward” but will notify the families and courts no later than July 7.
The families expressed their concern about giving Boeing a plea agreement and urged the government to prosecute the company and executives such as former Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg, who was at the company from 2015 until 2019 when he resigned after the fatal 737 MAX crashes and the jet’s subsequent groundings by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Some reports stated that Justice Department officials had told the families that they would likely not charge Boeing executives for the crashes and the alleged criminal fraud due to a five-year statute of limitations deadline for federal charges.
Robert Clifford, lead counsel for the families in their civil litigation against Boeing, told The Epoch Times these reports are “incorrect.”
“Charging individuals is not off the table,” he said.
Mr. Clifford explained that Justice Department officials had already explained in the 2021 settlement agreement that Boeing had “frustrated their investigation for at least six months.”
“We argue that that extends any five-year limitations,” he added.
Mr. Clifford held a press conference after the meeting with many of the family members. He said the goal of the session was to provide the Justice Department with “further legal analysis about how they should proceed.” The prosecutors were “a bit tight-lipped about their intentions,” he explained, but they were considering the families’ pleas in “good faith.”
“Boeing engaged in criminal conduct that should be properly prosecuted and penalized. That’s the position of the families from around the world. Three hundred and forty-six people needlessly died, and others could have died as well, had steps not been taken to ground those planes,” Mr. Clifford said.
Chris Moore, who lost his daughter Danielle Moore on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in 2019, wants Boeing executives to “face their time in court.”
“There’s enough information out there that individuals can be held accountable. And that’s exactly what we want: we want to have people, executives, and we want to have managers to face their time in court and to defend their actions, which are, as far as I’m concerned, indefensible,” he said.
“We need to have the truth. We need to have transparency. And that is the only way that justice will prevail.”
Michael Stumo lost his daughter Samya Stumo on the same flight. He criticized Boeing for not doing more to embrace safety and compliance after the fatal crashes. He called on Mr. Muilenburg to “get prison time for being the lead conspirator in this multi-year conspiracy to defraud the FAA.”
“We want the sentencing hearing where we get to put on the record all the bad acts of this repeat offender, Boeing,” Mr. Stumo said.
“All the whistleblowers that came in that wanted to report safety violations, and their managers forcibly prevented them from doing it. That’s the Boeing culture,” he said, adding that the Justice Department now has the chance to “fix it” by giving Boeing a “heavy sentence.”
Ike Riffel, who lost two sons in the 2019 crash, said he wants a “public trial of the individuals that caused this fraud,” noting that there are “good people” at Boeing who had nothing to do with the alleged crimes.
“That’s why I think we need to go after the individuals that caused this fraud and put them in prison where they belong,” he said.
Mr. Clifford explained that Boeing will face a civil trial beginning on Nov. 12 in Chicago. However, the families still want a public criminal trial from the U.S. government.
“The families want a day of reckoning in front of the jury so that the public knows the criminality of the conduct that led to the needless loss of 346 lives,” he added.
The Epoch Times reached out to both Dennis Muilenburg and Boeing for comment.
