{"id":553312,"date":"2025-11-06T17:16:22","date_gmt":"2025-11-06T17:16:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/553312\/"},"modified":"2025-11-06T17:16:22","modified_gmt":"2025-11-06T17:16:22","slug":"us-judge-approves-doj-decision-to-drop-boeing-criminal-case-courts-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/553312\/","title":{"rendered":"US judge approves DOJ decision to drop Boeing criminal case | Courts News"},"content":{"rendered":"

The DOJ argued that the federal judge did not have the authority to make the decision.<\/p>\n

Published On 6 Nov 20256 Nov 2025<\/p>\n

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A United States judge in Texas has approved the Department of Justice\u2019s request to dismiss a criminal case against Boeing despite his objections to the decision.<\/p>\n

On Thursday, Judge Reed O\u2019Connor of the US District Court in Fort Worth dismissed the case, which will allow the plane maker to avoid prosecution<\/a> over charges related to two deadly 737 MAX crashes: the 2018 Lion Air crash in Indonesia and the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash.<\/p>\n

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O\u2019Connor said he disagreed with the Justice Department\u2019s argument that ending the case served the public interest, noting that he lacked the authority to overrule it.<\/p>\n

The government argued Boeing has improved, and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is providing enhanced oversight. Boeing and the government argued O\u2019Connor had no choice but to dismiss the case.<\/p>\n

He said the deal with the aerospace giant \u201cfails to secure the necessary accountability to ensure the safety of the flying public\u201d.<\/p>\n

In September, O\u2019Connor held a three-hour hearing to consider objections to the deal, questioning the government\u2019s decision to drop a requirement that Boeing face oversight from an independent monitor for three years and instead hire a compliance consultant.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor said the government\u2019s position is \u201cBoeing committed crimes sufficient to justify prosecution, failed to remedy its fraudulent behaviour on its own during the [deferred prosecution agreement], which justified a guilty plea and the imposition of an independent monitor, but now Boeing will remedy that dangerous culture by retaining a consultant of its own choosing\u201d.<\/p>\n

The DOJ first criminally charged Boeing for the crashes in January 2021, but also agreed to deferred prosecution in the case.<\/p>\n

The plane maker was charged with one count of conspiracy to defraud the US. Courts found that Boeing deceived the FAA about what is called the manoeuvring characteristics augmentation system, which affects flight control systems on the aircraft.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoeing\u2019s employees chose the path of profit over candor by concealing material information from the FAA concerning the operation of its 737 Max airplane and engaging in an effort to cover up their deception,\u201d acting Assistant Attorney General David P Burns of the DOJ\u2019s criminal division said in a statement at the time.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Connor said in 2023 that \u201cBoeing\u2019s crime may properly be considered the deadliest corporate crime in US history\u201d.<\/p>\n

Under the non-prosecution deal, Boeing agreed to pay an additional $444.5m into a crash victims\u2019 fund to be divided evenly per victim of the two fatal 737 MAX crashes,<\/a> on top of a new $243.6m fine and more than $455m to strengthen the company\u2019s compliance, safety, and quality programmes.<\/p>\n

On Wall Street, Boeing\u2019s stock was up by 0.2 percent as of 11am in New York (16:00 GMT).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The DOJ argued that the federal judge did not have the authority to make the decision. Published On…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553313,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[1306,12633,30,1700,12,285,183,49,978,286,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-553312","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-aviation","9":"tag-business-and-economy","10":"tag-courts","11":"tag-economy","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-politics","14":"tag-travel","15":"tag-united-states","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-us-canada","18":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115503889318039364","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553312","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553312"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553312\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553313"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553312"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553312"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553312"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}