The families of 346 dead passengers urge the judge to reject the agreement.
District Judge Reed O’Connor pressed Department of Justice (DOJ) officials to explain the terms of their proposed plea deal with Boeing last week. If finalized, the company would plead guilty to conspiring to defraud regulators in exchange for limitations on any additional legal punishments from the court.
This plea deal surrounds two Boeing plane crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed a total of 346 people. After President Biden’s administration investigated the crashes, it found that both planes crashed due to known, illegal shortcuts in Boeing’s manufacturing process.
After other Boeing scandals earlier this year violated its first agreement with the Justice Department, which then drafted another agreement with Boeing. The families of the plane crash victims, who were shown the agreement before finalization, disagreed with the terms of the new plea deal. They said it did not go far enough in holding Boeing or its executives accountable for the crashes. The families jointly brought DOJ officials to court to negotiate the terms of the deal.
As the Lord Leads, Pray with Us…
- For wisdom for Judge O’Connor as he presides over the case.
- For Justice Department officials as they explain the agreement with Boeing.
- For comfort for the families of the plane crash victims.
Sources: Reuters, NY Times
