Jury Finds Former Boeing Pilot Not Guilty of Fraud in 737 Max Case. The pilot, Mark Forkner, was the only person to face criminal charges for flaws that resulted in two fatal crashes of one of Boeing's most important planes. A jury in Texas on Wednesday acquitted a former Boeing technical pilot, Mark A.
Only one of those pilots was prosecuted and a jury acquitted him at trial last year. Boeing also agreed to pay $2.5 billion, including $1.7 billion in compensation to airlines that had purchased 737 Max planes but could not use them while the plane was grounded for 20 months after the second plane crashed.
Boeing blamed two former employees for misleading the Federal Aviation Administration about the system, known by its acronym, MCAS. One of those former employees, a test pilot, is the only person prosecuted in connection with the Max. A jury in Judge O'Connor's courtroom found him not guilty last year.
In January 2021, Boeing made a deal with the U.S. Department of Justice that defers prosecution for the crime if the company complies with its terms, including federal oversight, monetary fines and payment to victims' families.
As a result, Boeing agreed to establish a $500 million fund to compensate the families of those who died, pay a fine of nearly $244 million and pay $1.77 billion in compensation to airlines.
The settlement allowed Boeing to avoid prosecution, and included a fine of $243.6m, compensation to airlines of $1.77bn and a $500m fund for crash victims over fraud conspiracy charges related to the plane's flawed design.
Boeing set aside $500 million to compensate the families, but the bulk of the $2.5 billion in fines it agreed to pay went to its airline customers.
Both airlines separately sued Boeing and argued they should have gotten compensation from Boeing as part of the plea deal, as other airlines did. Those suits in Seattle are pending.
In January 2021, the US charged Boeing with fraud. But the company was able to avoid going on trial, by agreeing to pay $2.5bn, including $500m to the families of those killed, and promising to tighten up its compliance procedures.
Under the terms of the January 2021 deferred prosecution agreement with the DOJ, Boeing had to pay a criminal monetary penalty of $243.6 million and compensation payments to its 737 Max airline customers of $1.77 billion.
The Boeing 737 MAX is still flying worldwide—despite mounting evidence that the aircraft is unsafe. Investigation reports from the Indonesian and Ethiopian governments on the Boeing 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 indicate that both of those brand-new planes had preexisting defects that have yet to be resolved.
From an engineering perspective, the central ethical issue in the MAX case arguably circulates around the decision to use software (i.e., MCAS) to “mask” a questionable hardware design—the repositioning of the engines that disrupted the aerodynamics of the airframe (Travis 2019).
The Department of Justice Charged Boeing with 737 MAX Fraud Conspiracy and Settled for $2.5 Billion. Release of the H.R. 133 Including Division V Aircraft Certification, Safety, and Accountability. The FAA approves the return of the Boeing 737 MAX to service.
Generally, an injured person may be compensated for past and future medical expenses, past and future lost earnings, past and future pain and suffering, past and future disability and any disfigurement that has resulted from the accident.
A federal appeals court has rejected a class action lawsuit against Boeing and Southwest Airlines that accused the companies of putting 737 MAX passengers in harm's way and covering up known dangers to the flying public.
Nearly 1,000 Boeing 737 MAX aircraft are currently active across the skies.
Compensation in case of death or injury
According to Article 21 of the Montreal Convention, in case of death of passengers, the airline is liable to pay up to 1,13,100 Special Drawing Rights for each passenger. This works out to approximately $1,74,000 at current rates.
Judge rejects Boeing request to block pain and suffering damages for crash victims who died upon impact. A federal judge rejected arguments from attorneys for Boeing that it should not have to pay for the pain and suffering of 157 victims of a March 2019 Boeing 737 Max crash because they all died on impact.
US judge faced with request to rescind Boeing's immunity from 737 Max prosecution. A US Federal judge is faced with deciding whether to lift Boeing's immunity from criminal prosecution related to two 737 Max crashes that killed 346 people.
What did he know? Forkner was accused of deceiving the FAA and two of Boeing's U.S. airline customers and faced four counts of wire fraud, each carrying a maximum penalty of 20 years in prison.
The families said that the Justice Department not only left them in the dark about the settlement, but also misled them by falsely telling them that there was no criminal investigation into Boeing. Those actions, the families said, violated the federal Crime Victims' Rights Act.
Of course, Boeing's best-selling and most produced aircraft has been the Boeing 737.
Both the NTSB and France's Bureau of Enquiry and Analysis agreed with the Ethiopian agency's conclusion that the design of Boeing's new flight control software that repeatedly pushed the jet's nose down — the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS — was a major cause of the accident.
The ultimate Boeing 737 MAX question is always, 'is it safe now? '. The answer to that is a resounding yes. The plane has been described as one of the most scrutinized aircraft in aviation history, with authorities like the FAA, EASA, and many more taking a very close look at the plane.
The families argued the U.S. government “lied and violated their rights through a secret process,” and asked O'Connor to rescind Boeing's immunity from criminal prosecution, which was part of the 2021 $2.5 billion Boeing settlement over fraud conspiracy charges related to the plane's flawed design, and to arraign ...