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Boeing will plead guilty to fraud surrounding a settlement that the American
aircraft manufacturer reached with the justice system in the United States.
The aircraft manufacturer admits to violating the terms of the settlement
surrounding two fatal crashes involving the troubled 737 MAX aircraft. The US
Department of Justice announced this.
 
Boeing and Justice already reached a settlement in 2021 regarding the two
fatal accidents from 2018 and 2019. But the Ministry of Justice concluded that
Boeing violated obligations under that agreement. As a result, the company
could still be prosecuted for the two crashes, in which 346 people died.
 
If the agreement is approved by a federal judge, the aircraft manufacturer
will officially be a convicted criminal. Boeing will also pay a fine of $243.6
million, a US Justice Department official said.
 
The guilty plea could potentially prevent lucrative government contracts with,
among others, the US Department of Defense and the space agency NASA. Yet
Boeing is avoiding a lengthy criminal trial that would reveal the company's
decisions surrounding the fatal plane crashes to the general public.
 
Boeing has been under scrutiny again since the beginning of this year after an
aircraft lost a door panel shortly after takeoff. There have also been defects
with his spaceship Starliner.
 
The fatal crashes took place in Ethiopia and Indonesia. A defect in sensors of
a safety system played a role in the crashes. Instead of protecting the
aircraft from a climb that is too steep, this so-called MCAS system kept
pushing the nose of the aircraft down.
 
Due to recent technical problems at Boeing, there has been a lot of unrest at
the top of the company. CEO Dave Calhoun will resign at the end of this year.
Other top executives have also resigned. Regulators are now paying much closer
attention to quality at Boeing.

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