By David Shepardson
WASHINGTON, March 31 (Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Tuesday upheld a ruling by a lower court to approve the Justice Department decision to dismiss a criminal case against Boeing, which allowed the planemaker to avoid prosecution on a charge stemming from two fatal 737 MAX plane crashes that killed 346 people.
Judge Reed O’Connor, of the U.S. District Court in Fort Worth, Texas, in November said he had no authority to reject the government’s decision to make a deal with Boeing, even though he said it “fails to secure the necessary accountability to ensure the safety of the flying public.”
A three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld O’Connor’s decision, saying a federal crime victims law does not grant “an unlimited right for victims to appeal the dismissal of criminal prosecutions.”
O’Connor said he did not agree that dismissing the case, which had been pursued under the Biden administration and initially resulted in an admission of guilt by Boeing, was in the public interest.
O’Connor said in 2023 that “Boeing’s crime may properly be considered the deadliest corporate crime in U.S. history.”
Boeing had agreed to plead guilty in 2024 to a criminal fraud conspiracy charge after the fatal 737 MAX crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.
After President Donald Trump took office, DOJ reversed course in May and dropped the demand for a guilty plea.
Under the deal, Boeing agreed to pay an additional $444.5 million into a crash victims’ fund to be divided evenly per victim of the two fatal 737 MAX crashes, on top of a new $243.6 million fine and $455 million to strengthen the company’s compliance, safety, and quality programs.
In September, the FAA proposed fining Boeing $3.1 million for a series of safety violations, including actions tied to a January 2024 Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 mid-air emergency, and for interfering with safety officials’ independence.
(Reporting by David Shepardson; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Mark Porter)
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