Boeing seals £812m deal to avoid prosecution over 737 Max plane crashes that killed 346 people - as lawyer for victims' families condemns agreement as 'morally repugnant'
Boeing has reached a deal with the US Department of Justice to avoid prosecution over crashes involving a 737 Max plane that killed 346 people.
The agreement, outlined in a court filing this week, will see the aerospace giant pay $1.1 billion (£812 million), including a $487.2 million criminal penalty, half of which was already paid in a previous settlement.
The move has been blasted by the victims' families' lawyer, Sanjiv Singh, who told the BBC the deal was a 'morally repugnant' escape which allowed the firm to 'sidestep true criminal accountability'.
If approved by a federal judge, the deal would protect the firm from a criminal fraud trial.
The company previously said it is 'deeply sorry' for their loss, adding that it remains 'committed to honouring their loved one's memories' by pressing ahead with changes to the company.
The deal would also see $444.5m in compensation to families of the crash victims.
It will also put $455m towards improving its compliance, safety and quality programmes.
Boeing would also agree to pay a criminal penalty of $487.2m, although half of that was already paid in 2021.
The two Boeing 737 Max crashes, which happened less than five months apart, claimed 346 lives and sparked global outrage.
In October 2018, Lion Air flight 610 plunged into the Java Sea shortly after takeoff from Jakarta, in Indonesia killing all 189 people on board.
Then, in March 2019, Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crashed minutes after departing Addis Ababa, resulting in the deaths of 157 passengers and crew.
Both disasters were later traced to faulty flight control systems, leading to the worldwide grounding of the 737 Max fleet for nearly two years.
Since then, many families of the victims have spent years demanding a full public trial, tougher penalties for Boeing, and the prosecution of senior company executives.
In 2021, Boeing avoided criminal prosecution by reaching a deferred prosecution agreement with the US Department of Justice, which included a $243.6 million fine.
However, prosecutors later alleged that Boeing had breached the terms of its 2021 deferred prosecution agreement by failing to put in place promised reforms to detect and prevent future violations of federal anti-fraud laws.
In response, Boeing agreed last July to plead guilty to a felony fraud charge, potentially avoiding a lengthy and high-profile public trial.
It will be the fourth meeting between the DOJ and the families, some of whom are seen here in 2019, of those who died in the two 737 MAX crashes that killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019
But in December, US District Judge Reed O'Connor rejected the plea deal.
He raised concerns that government and corporate diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) policies could influence the selection of an independent monitor, the person responsible for overseeing Boeing's compliance, and argued that race might become a factor in the appointment process.
A spokesperson for Boeing said: 'Boeing is committed to complying with its obligations under this resolution, which include a substantial additional fine and commitments to further institutional improvements and investments.
'The resolution also provides for substantial additional compensation for the families of those lost in the Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 accidents.
'We are deeply sorry for their losses, and remain committed to honouring their loved ones' memories by pressing forward with the broad and deep changes to our company that we have made to strengthen our safety system and culture.'
MailOnline approached the US Justice Department for comment.
The firm maker has also been plagued by other incidents involving its other planes in the US.
Last year, a wheel fell off a Boeing 777-200 shortly after takeoff in San Francisco, with the wheel falling after takeoff, crushing cars parked below after it plummeted to the ground.
The United Airlines flight 35 left San Francisco Airport on its way to Osaka in Japan and was barely off the runway when the Boeing 777-200's wheel came off.
The plane with 235 passengers and 14 crew diverted to Los Angeles Airport after it was alerted to the landing gear failure and safely landed with no further issues and no injuries reported.
Just days before this, a 737 engine caught fire mid-flight with a heart-stopping video catching the moment the Boeing jet's engines exploded and burst into flames in the skies above Texas, forcing an emergency landing.
The terrifying incident took place just minutes into a United Airlines flight bound for Fort Myers, Florida.
Moments later, they were forced to make an emergency landing and return to George H. Bush Intercontinental Houston Airport moments after takeoff. No injuries were reported in the incident.
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Sky News
an hour ago
- Sky News
US warplanes transit through UK: Here's what the flight tracking data shows
Flight tracking data shows extensive movement of US military aircraft towards the Middle East in recent days, including via the UK. Fifty-two US military planes were spotted flying over the eastern Mediterranean towards the Middle East between Monday and Thursday. That includes at least 25 that passed through Chania airport, on the Greek island of Crete - an eight-fold increase in the rate of arrivals compared to the first half of June. The movement of military equipment comes as the US considers whether to assist Israel in its conflict with Iran. Of the 52 planes spotted over the eastern Mediterranean, 32 are used for transporting troops or cargo, 18 are used for mid-air refuelling and two are reconnaissance planes. Forbes McKenzie, founder of McKenzie Intelligence, says that this indicates "the build-up of warfighting capability, which was not [in the region] before". Sky's data does not include fighter jets, which typically fly without publicly revealing their location. An air traffic control recording from Wednesday suggests that F-22 Raptors are among the planes being sent across the Atlantic, while 12 F-35 fighter jets were photographed travelling from the UK to the Middle East on Wednesday. Many US military planes are passing through UK A growing number of US Air Force planes have been passing through the UK in recent days. Analysis of flight tracking data at three key air bases in the UK shows 63 US military flights landing between 16 and 19 June - more than double the rate of arrivals earlier in June. On Thursday, Sky News filmed three US military C-17A Globemaster III transport aircraft and a C-130 Hercules military cargo plane arriving at Glasgow's Prestwick Airport. Flight tracking data shows that one of the planes arrived from an air base in Jordan, having earlier travelled there from Germany. What does Israel need from US? Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on 15 March that his country's aim is to remove "two existential threats - the nuclear threat and the ballistic missile threat". Israel says that Iran is attempting to develop a nuclear bomb, though Iran says its nuclear facilities are only for civilian energy purposes. A US intelligence assessment in March concluded that Iran is not building a nuclear weapon. President Trump dismissed the assessment on Tuesday, saying: "I think they were very close to having one." Forbes McKenzie says the Americans have a "very similar inventory of weapons systems" to the Israelis, "but of course, they also have the much-talked-about GBU-57". The GBU-57 is a 30,000lb bomb - the largest non-nuclear bomb in existence. Mr McKenzie explains that it is "specifically designed to destroy targets which are very deep underground". 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Satellite imagery captured on 15 June shows the aftermath of Israeli strikes on a missile facility near the western city of Kermanshah, which destroyed at least 12 buildings at the site. At least four tunnel entrances were also damaged in the strikes, two of which can be seen in the image below. Writing for Jane's Defence Weekly, military analyst Jeremy Binnie says it looked like the tunnels were "targeted using guided munitions coming in at angles, not destroyed from above using penetrator bombs, raising the possibility that the damage can be cleared, enabling any [missile launchers] trapped inside to deploy". "This might reflect the limited payloads that Israeli aircraft can carry to Iran," he adds. Penetrator bombs, also known as bunker-busters, are much heavier than other types of munitions and as a result require more fuel to transport. Israel does not have the latest generation of refuelling aircraft, Mr Binnie says, meaning it is likely to struggle to deploy a significant number of penetrator bombs. Israel has struck most of Iran's western missile bases Even without direct US assistance, the Israeli air force has managed to inflict significant damage on Iran's missile launch capacity. Sky News has confirmed Israeli strikes on at least five of Iran's six known missile bases in the west of the country. On Monday, the IDF said that its strategy of targeting western launch sites had forced Iran to rely on its bases in the centre of the country, such as Isfahan - around 1,500km (930 miles) from Israel. Among Iran's most advanced weapons are three types of solid-fuelled rockets fitted with highly manoeuvrable warheads: Fattah-1, Kheibar Shekan and Haj Qassam. The use of solid fuel makes these missiles easy to transport and fast to launch, while their manoeuvrable warheads make them better at evading Israeli air defences. However, none of them are capable of striking Israel from such a distance. Iran is known to possess five types of missile capable of travelling more than 1,500km, but only one of these uses solid fuel - the Sijjil-1. On 18 June, Iran claimed to have used this missile against Israel for the first time. Iran's missiles have caused significant damage Iran's missile attacks have killed at least 24 people in Israel and wounded hundreds, according to the Israeli foreign ministry. The number of air raid alerts in Israel has topped 1,000 every day since the start of hostilities, reaching a peak of 3,024 on 15 June. Iran has managed to strike some government buildings, including one in the city of Haifa on Friday. And on 13 June, in Iran's most notable targeting success so far, an Iranian missile impacted on or near the headquarters of Israel's defence ministry in Tel Aviv. Most of the Iranian strikes verified by Sky News, however, have hit civilian targets. 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Estimates by human rights groups of the total number of fatalities exceed 600. What is clear is that among the military personnel killed are many key figures in the Iranian armed forces, including the military's chief of staff, deputy head of intelligence and deputy head of operations. Key figures in the powerful Revolutionary Guard have also been killed, including the militia's commander-in-chief, its aerospace force commander and its air defences commander. On Thursday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said that US assistance was not necessary for Israel to win the war. "We will achieve all our objectives and hit all of their nuclear facilities," he said. "We have the capability to do that." 3:49 Forbes McKenzie says that while Israel has secured significant victories in the war so far, "they only have so much fuel, they only have so many munitions". "The Americans have an ability to keep up the pace of operations that the Israelis have started, and they're able to do it for an indefinite period of time." Additional reporting by data journalist Joely Santa Cruz and OSINT producers Freya Gibson, Lina-Sirine Zitout and Sam Doak.
Times
an hour ago
- Times
The missing link in the grooming gangs report: cousin marriage
When the US Department of Defence set up an interrogation unit at Guantanamo Bay after 9/11, it conducted a detailed study on the suspected terrorists it held. Agents wanted to understand the links between them, the way they had worked together, the better to infiltrate their wider networks. They found nothing. Diddly squat. They conducted audits, led themselves on a merry dance, but achieved zilch. • 'Wrongly prosecuted' grooming gang victims denied compensation Then they hired someone who understood the culture of the people they'd apprehended; someone steeped in Arabic mores. She instantly spotted a pattern in the names of the suspects. A startlingly high proportion were from two clans: the Qahtani and the Utaybi. When she mentioned this to her DoD colleagues, their first question was: what the hell is a clan? Only after she explained the significance of these social institutions, the subtle pattern of names that indicate clan affiliations and the codes of honour and secrecy that make them powerful vehicles for group action did they see the point. The agents were then able to infiltrate the networks and prevent future atrocities. Why am I telling you this? Well, because I read Baroness Casey of Blackstock's report on the rape gangs scandal with rising levels of frustration — indeed much the same emotion with which I read her 2016 report on social integration. I don't doubt Casey's work rate or integrity. But I think that, somewhat like the DoD at Guantanamo, she couldn't see what was before her eyes because she lacked the appropriate analytical lens. • 'Whitehall tried to block Rotherham grooming scandal exposé' You see, to understand many of the most urgent failures of integration, you need to understand the clan. These groups are held together not just by ideology or religion; they are cemented by cousin marriage, a common practice in Arabic cultures and, in the UK, many Pakistani immigrant communities, particularly those hailing from Kashmir. By marrying within small, tightknit groups, they ensure everything is kept within the baradari, or brotherhood — property, secrets, loyalty — binding clan members closer together while sequestering them from wider society. In her 2016 report Casey rightly talked about the failure to speak English, honour beatings and the like, but she missed the point that many of these problems are a function of marriage practices that isolate communities. The academic Patrick Nash of the Pharos Foundation has written of baradari life 'concentrated in small geographical areas spread across a few streets or nearby neighbourhoods where there is little need or opportunity to have much to do with wider society or practise the English language'. To write a report on failures of integration without seeing the link with cousin marriage is, I suggest, like writing on the power grid without noting the significance of electricity. • How the grooming gang report detailed abusers' ethnicity Casey's report on the rape gang scandal was flawed for the same reason. It was a strange experience to read her words as she edged ever closer to grasping the point without quite getting there. She noted that the problem is disproportionately concentrated among British Pakistanis. She even noted that 'two thirds of suspects offended within groups' that were 'based on pre-existing relationships — mainly brothers and cousins'. But then, stunningly, she suggested that these links were 'unsophisticated' and 'informal'. Anyone who studies these things — one thinks of Michael Muthukrishna at LSE — could have told her that this is the unmistakable pattern of clan-based crime: groups whose links are anything but informal and unsophisticated. Charlie Peters, who has investigated this problem for GB News, told me: 'The deeper you probe, the more you see the presence of clans. We know that such communities are more likely to see others as outsiders, of less moral value and, when it comes to young white girls, fair game. The perpetrators also knew that they could commit crimes without getting dobbed in since loyalty is owed to the clan but not victims. In some cases, abusers were aided by relatives in authority.' Nash put it this way: 'Cousin marriage sustains close-kin networks which incentivise clan members both to dehumanise out-group victims and to suppress knowledge of criminal activity to preserve family honour.' • Grooming gangs 'still at large, and the victims aren't believed' A couple of examples. Last year, Shaha Amran Miah, 48, Shaha Alman Miah, 47, and Shaha Joman Miah, 38, were convicted at Preston crown court of horrific abuse perpetrated in Barrow-in-Furness and Leeds. Yes, these were Pakistani men, but they were also brothers within an overarching baradari. In Rotherham in 2016, Arshid, Basharat and Bannaras Hussain groomed and raped children for nearly 20 years while Qurban Ali was found guilty of conspiracy to rape. Three of these men are brothers and Ali is their uncle. I have long advocated a ban on cousin marriage but should perhaps say that I've never regarded it as a panacea. Improving integration requires so much more: ending mass uncontrolled immigration, amending legal frameworks to stop the boats, deporting foreign criminals, not to mention other policies supported by large majorities but serially ducked by politicians. A ban on consanguinity would, though, be of huge value. American states with bans tend to be more prosperous and faster-growing. Nations with bans are richer and more integrated, with less corruption and lower rates of crime. A ban would also reduce the prevalence of the congenital diseases causing untold suffering in Kashmiri immigrant communities from Bradford to Luton. The good news is that Kemi Badenoch has adopted this as Tory policy after campaigning by her colleague Richard Holden, and a poll for YouGov last month showed that 77 per cent of the British people are in favour of a ban (only 9 per cent oppose it). But here's what astounds me: Labour remains against prohibition, despite (I am told) having read the evidence. Why? How? Permit me to suggest that I glimpse through the façade of prevarication a party still terrified of criticising any cultural practice out of fear of appearing racist. Isn't that why it was mute for so long on female genital mutilation and honour beatings and still can't bring itself to describe the burqa as a pernicious symbol of institutional misogyny? In other words, the reason the grooming scandal was not confronted for so long by both main parties (not to mention the police and social services) — namely, the fear of seeming bigoted for investigating ethnic minorities, even while they were gang-raping young girls — is still alive and well in the British government. As the son of a Pakistani immigrant who integrated into this nation (not least by marrying my mum) and came to love it, I find this sickening. One can perhaps forgive Casey for missing the significance of cousin marriage, given that it is a custom with which she is unfamiliar (although, frankly, she should have done her homework), but there can be no excuse for politicians who put cultural sensitivities before basic decency. So I say to Starmer, Hermer, Cooper et al: examine your consciences. Did you really go into politics to be apologists for the worst kind of moral relativism, to acquiesce in the nihilistic pretence that all cultural practices are of equal value, when they emphatically are not? If not, find your backbone, confront the Muslim bloc vote and ban cousin marriage. The alternative is betrayal of the most heinous kind. For here's a thought to focus minds: girls today, even as you read these words, are being abused by ethnic clans operating in this country. Fail to act now, and this is on you.
Daily Mail
an hour ago
- Daily Mail
Minnesota shooting suspect was a 'prepper' who made a 'bailout plan'
The wife of the suspect charged with killing a Minnesota politician and attempting to assassinate another confessed the couple are 'doomsday preppers' and her husband had given her a 'bailout plan.' Vance Boelter, 57, is accused of fatally shooting former Democratic House Speaker Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, in their home in the early morning hours of June 14 in the northern Minneapolis suburbs. He also allegedly shot and wounded another Democrat, Sen. John Hoffman, and his wife, Yvette, who lived a few miles away. While Boelter was on the run, his wife was pulled over with a trove of suspicious items in her car. Jenny Boelter, 51, was stopped by authorities at a convenience store while driving a car with the couple's children inside and found with a weapon, ammunition, cash and passports. According to an FBI affidavit obtained by WCCO, Boelter's wife told the investigator they were 'preppers,' meaning they 'prepare for major or catastrophic incidents.' She said her husband gave her a 'bailout plan,' with instructions to go to her mother's home in southwestern Wisconsin, which she initiated after receiving a text from her husband that 'they needed to get out of the house and people with guns may be showing up to the house.' The affidavit also stated that Boelter was driven to a bank in Robbinsdale, Minnesota, by an unnamed person and withdrew all $2,200 he had in a bank account in his name. The driver, listed in court documents as 'Witness 1,' is the same person investigators said sold Boelter an electric bike and a Buick sedan, which were found during the 43-hour manhunt last weekend. Boelter surrendered Sunday night after what authorities have called the largest search in Minnesota history. He has been charged with six federal crimes, including murder, stalking and firearms offense, as two murder and two attempted murder charges at the state level. Boelter has not entered any pleas and could face the death penalty if convicted on the federal charges. Meanwhile, Boelter's wife has remained in hiding - as the accused assassin's defiant family were tight-lipped concerning her whereabouts, telling a reporter to 'piss off.' Shaken mom-of-five, Jenny rang pals only to say she was in a 'safe' location but wouldn't reveal where she was. She fled the family's bucolic farmhouse home in Green Isle, Minnesota, the morning of June 14 after Boelter hinted that he had done something monstrous in a 6.18am text. 'Dad went to war last night,' wrote of her 57-year-old husband. 'There's gonna be some people coming to the house armed and trigger happy and I don't want you guys around.' As news broke that Boelter had allegedly gunned down two lawmakers and their spouses in Minneapolis, Jenny was pulled over driving through Onamia, 90 miles north. She had their youngest children in the car along with their passports, $10,000 in cash and two handguns, according to federal court filings. Jenny, the president of the couple's private security firm, consented to a voluntary search of her electronic devices but wasn't arrested during the 10am traffic stop. There's nothing in her husband's charging documents to suggest she had advance knowledge of his alleged plot to slaughter dozens of Democrat lawmakers and pro-abortion activists. Jenny has not commented publicly since Boelter was captured Sunday evening and charged with multiple counts of murder and stalking. Her brother Jason Doskocil, 54, had a blunt message for when we asked about her whereabouts.
