The U.S. Justice Department is pushing for Boeing to plead guilty to a criminal charge after several fatal crash cases involving their planes.
The planemaker reportedly violated a settlement over fatal 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.
Two people familiar with the matter claimed U.S. Justice Department officials revealed their decision to victims’ family members during a call over the weekend.
The plea deal would allegedly require Boeing to plead guilty to conspiring to defraud the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration in connection with the crashes.
Earlier this month, Boeing’s “Starliner” space shuttle aborted launching just minutes before takeoff after a “problem” was detected by a countdown computer.
Engineers initially were told to set up for another launch try Sunday, at 12:03 p.m. EDT, but NASA later announced the mission was postponed again.
Tory Bruno, CEO of United Launch Alliance, builder of the Atlas 5 rocket, said the issue involved one of three networked computer racks in a building at the base of the launch pad.
“The disappointment lasts for about three seconds. And then you just immediately get busy and do your job. We’ll be back,” Bruno said.
The incident happened just one month after whistleblowers with Boeing came forward to speak out against the company’s safety procedures despite two other whistleblowers having passed away suddenly.
One whistleblower was found dead from a gunshot wound while another died from an infection.
A whistleblower who left Boeing six years ago, Ed Pierson, is a former senior manager who went on to create the Foundation for Aviation Safety.
“It’s an unstable company right now from the top to the bottom,” Pierson told The New York Post. “Senior corporate leadership is so fixated on not admitting the truth that they can’t admit anything.”
