Boeing plea deal over fatal Max crashes rejected

Boeing and the Department of Justice have 30 days to develop a new plan in response to the ruling.

The plane maker has been struggling to emerge from the shadow cast by two, near-identical crashes of its 737 Max planes in 2018 and 2019.

The aerospace giant faced fresh crisis in January when a door panel on a new Boeing plane operated by Alaska Airlines blew out soon after take-off.

The incident reignited questions about what Boeing had done to improve its safety and quality record since the accidents, which were tied to the company’s flight control system.

The door panel malfunction happened shortly before the end of a three-year period of increased monitoring and reporting.

Boeing had agreed to the monitoring as part of a 2021 plea deal to resolve a charge it had deceived regulators over the flight control system.

In May, the Department of Justice said Boeing had violated the terms of that agreement, opening up the possibility of prosecution.

Instead, the two sides struck another deal, angering families who had hoped to see the company brought to trial.

In the ruling, Judge O’Connor wrote it was “not clear what all” Boeing had done to breach the 2021 agreement.

Nonetheless, he wrote, “taken as true that Boeing breached the [deal], it is fair to say that the government’s attempt to ensure compliance has failed”.