Boeing finalizes 737 MAX guilty plea deal, US outlines reasons

Boeing finalized a guilty plea to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge and agreed to pay at least $243.6m after breaching a 2021 agreement with the U.S. Justice Department, according to a court filing on Wednesday. The planemaker allowed potentially risky work at its factories and did not ensure key airplane record keeping was accurate or complete, the Justice Department said as it outlined why it believed the planemaker had violated the 2021 deferred prosecution agreement. Boeing on July 7 agreed in principle to plead guilty to conspiring to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration after the government said the planemaker knowingly made false representations about key software for the 737 MAX. Boeing confirmed on Wednesday that it had filed a detailed plea agreement with the Justice Department. "We will continue to work transparently with our regulators as we take significant actions across Boeing to further strengthen our safety, quality and compliance programs," the company said. The Justice Department said in May that Boeing had breached its obligations in the agreement that shielded the planemaker from criminal prosecution stemming from misrepresentations about a key software feature tied to fatal 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people. The finding was made in the wake of a January in-flight panel blowout on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX that exposed continuing safety and quality issues at Boeing, just two days before the 2021 agreement shielding it from prosecution over the previous fatal crashes expired.<br/>