DOJ may drop case against Boeing over deadly 737 Max crashes, despite families' outrage

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Source: NPR

NATIONAL
DOJ may drop case against Boeing over deadly 737 Max crashes, despite families' outrage

MAY 16, 2025 5:22 PM ET
Joel Rose


Relatives of victims hold a placard with photos of victims of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crash in March 2019, prior to a hearing in Fort Worth, Texas, in January 2023.
Shelby Tauber/AFP via Getty Images

WASHINGTON -- The Department of Justice is considering dropping its criminal case against Boeing over two fatal crashes of 737 Max jets, according to lawyers for family members of the crash victims who met with prosecutors on Friday.

Boeing agreed last year to plead guilty to defrauding regulators after the crashes of two 737 Max jets, in 2018 and 2019, that killed 346 people. But a federal judge rejected that proposed plea deal.

Now the Justice Department is weighing another agreement that would allow Boeing to avoid criminal prosecution. The company would agree instead to a non-criminal settlement that would include $444.5 million for a crash victims' fund.

Lawyers for some of the family members say they're outraged by the proposed deal, and said they plan to fight it in court. ... "This isn't justice," Erin Applebaum, an attorney at the firm Kreindler & Kreindler, said in a statement. "It's a backroom deal dressed up as a legal proceeding, and it sends a dangerous message: in America, the rich and powerful can buy their way out of accountability."

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Read more: https://www.npr.org/2025/05/16/g-s1-67245/doj-boeing-737-max-crashes-deal-prosecution-plane