[Peetwo]

Boeing plead guilty to criminal fraud??

Via Oz Aviation...

BOEING TO PLEAD GUILTY TO FELONY CHARGES OVER MAX 8 CRASHES

written by Jake Nelson | July 8, 2024

Boeing will plead guilty to conspiring to defraud the US government over the safety failures of its 737 MAX 8 aircraft in what crash victims’ families are criticising as a “sweetheart deal”.

The planemaker will pay a US$487.2 million fine, the maximum allowed, and pour at least $455 million over the next three years into compliance and safety programs. It will also be placed under a three-year probation, to be supervised by an independent monitor to ensure compliance.

“We can confirm that we have reached an agreement in principle on terms of a resolution with the Justice Department, subject to the memorialisation and approval of specific terms,” the company said in a statement on Monday.

The guilty plea relates to a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement between Boeing and the US Department of Justice over the fatal crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 on 29 October 2018 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on 10 March 2019, both operated by 737 MAX 8 aircraft.

The DoJ indicated earlier this year it was looking into whether Boeing had breached the agreement after the mid-air blowout of a door plug on board Alaska Airlines flight 1282 from Portland to Ontario, which was being operated by a 737 MAX 9 in January 2024.

Federal district court Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth, Texas, will now determine whether the plea agreement should be accepted.

Families of the Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines crash victims have indicated they will fight the plea deal, which their attorney, Paul Cassell, saying it “fails to recognise that because of Boeing’s conspiracy, 346 people died”.

“Through crafty lawyering between Boeing and DOJ, the deadly consequences of Boeing’s crime are being hidden,” he said.

“A judge can reject a plea deal that is not in the public interest, and this deceptive and unfair deal is clearly not in the public interest.

“We plan to ask Judge O’Connor to use his recognised authority to reject this inappropriate plea and simply set the matter for a public trial, so that all the facts surrounding the case will be aired in a fair and open forum before a jury.”

One family member, aircraft engineer Javier de Luis, whose sister died in the Ethiopian Airlines crash, said the DoJ is “repeating the same mistakes” with the deal, which appears to allow Boeing executives to escape individual criminal charges.

“The penalties and conditions imposed on Boeing as a result of this plea deal are not substantively different than those that failed to change Boeing’s safety culture and that resulted in the Alaska Air door blowout,” he said.

“This agreement ignores Judge O’Connor’s finding that Boeing’s fraud was directly responsible for the deaths of 346 people. It ignores the Fifth Circuit’s observation that an agreement such as this fundamentally needs to serve the manifest public interest of improving aviation safety.

“When the next crash happens, every DoJ official that signed off on this deal will be as responsible as the Boeing executives that refuse to put safety ahead of profits.”

Virgin is currently the only operator of the 737 MAX 8 in Australia following the collapse of Bonza.

As you can imagine there is much social media commentary on this story, including this response from Karlene Petitt on X:

Karlene Petitt
@KarlenePetitt

Boeing agrees to plea guilty of criminal fraud. And John Barnett is dead. Is there #Justice? https://t.co/a9k48vFqOt Something good can come from his death... please read and share this. Together we can make change. #flying

Memorandum  From:  Stakeholders favoring stronger protection for aviation safety advocates. 

To:  Relevant Congressional offices and committees 

Re:  Language to modernize AIR21 protections 

The recent death of Boeing whistleblower John Barnett highlights the inadequacy of protections under the AIR21 statute. 49 U.S.C. §42121(a). The Boeing fiascos are déjà vu about a quality control breakdown that could and should have been corrected long ago. 

Mr. Barnett had been protesting for over a decade, initially through the Boeing corporation and then through current legal rights (the AIR21 procedural mechanisms) that proceeded at a molasses pace. When anti-retaliation rights in AIR21 were first enacted in 2000, they reflected best practices at the time. Over a decade later, however, they have become badly outdated and now are primitive compared to 16 corporate whistleblower laws that Congress subsequently enacted unanimously. 

While some additional amendments have been made to AIR21 in recent years, Barnett’s death and the ongoing significant safety failures with airplanes demonstrate that AIR21 must be strengthened to encourage workers in the industry to speak up before passengers are harmed. The suggestions below are for an AIR21 Safety Advocate Act, which we think the current law should be renamed. These recommendations are the menu of where AIR21 needs updating to keep pace with other corporate accountability laws, and include language to provide solutions.  

Read the Entire Memo Here

I'm not sure if a plea deal is justice,

But a law change would be!

Enjoy the Journey!

Dr. Karlene Petitt
PhD. MBA. MHS.
A350, B777, A330, B747-400, B747-200, B767, B757, B737, B727

Also prior to the plea announcement the FSD crew did a session with an aviation legal expert Mark Dombroff on the risks of criminalising aviation accident investigation:

As Boeing continues to be the subject of investigations and congressional hearings the concept of criminalization has come to the forefront. This could have a devastating impact on aviation safety in the U.S. Special guest and aviation attorney Mark Dombroff focuses on efforts to criminalize the investigation of aviation accidents and incidents.

The effort to use criminal prosecutions to address aviation safety issues in the U.S. would dramatically impact the process of getting to the facts, including making witnesses more reluctant to come forward with details. Criminalizing will make the safety investigation process more difficult and less effective.

While some in the legal community favor criminalization, it is not the approach used in most of the world. Aviation accident investigation focuses on understanding what happened and how to prevent similar events in the future. A criminal investigation would shift the goals to assigning blame and handing out punishment.

Several notable past investigations came up during the discussion, including a fatal 2006 midair collision in Brazil involving a 737 and a corporate jet. The corporate jet pilots were detained in Brazil for several months and threatened with prosecution for almost 18 years. When TWA Flight 800 crashed, there was tension over whether the FBI or the NTSB would conduct the investigation.

The FSD latest podcast also covered off on the subject of the 'Dangers of Turbulence'...

Planes that experience turbulence in flight are getting a lot of headline attention lately. During one widely covered incident of turbulence in May 2024 a passenger aboard a Singapore Airlines flight was killed.

Serious turbulence leading to injuries is not uncommon. Todd Curtis and John Goglia discuss several notable in-flight turbulence events, including the death of 1950s era test pilot Scott Crossfield.

Specific and useful information about turbulence conditions is often not readily available. However, pilots can avoid turbulence, either by adjusting the planned flight to miss major areas of turbulence or by deciding not to take off if the risks are high.

Airline passengers also have a role in dealing with turbulence dangers. Seat belts and keeping items stowed in flight minimize the risks in bumpy conditions.

MTF...P2