The U.S. government has decided to shut the door on the only criminal charge tied to the Boeing 737 MAX disasters—without taking it to trial, without a conviction, and without independent oversight. Instead, a deal has been inked. Money has changed hands. And justice, some say, has been swept under a corporate rug.
Under the agreement, Boeing will avoid the branding of a criminal conviction for the two crashes that left 346 people dead. In exchange, it will funnel another $444.5 million into a fund for victims’ families—divided equally among the lives lost—and pay a separate $243.6 million penalty. All told, the price tag to close the case: $1.1 billion.
The company also promises to spend more than $455 million to improve its safety, compliance, and quality programs. No independent monitor will check on whether it actually does so. Instead, Boeing gets to choose a compliance consultant to help clean up the mess it helped create.
The decision didn’t land quietly. Families of crash victims, some of whom had pushed for a full prosecution, called the outcome a betrayal. They wanted a trial, not a transaction. A courtroom reckoning, not a corporate arrangement. Several have promised to fight the resolution.
Federal prosecutors, on the other hand, praised the outcome as a compromise that delivers “meaningful accountability” and spares everyone the uncertainty of trial.
But uncertainty, some argue, is the nature of justice. What’s certain now is that Boeing CEO Kelly Ortberg has signed on the dotted line, and the company has escaped with its reputation legally intact—even if morally shattered.
The deal also cuts short the criminal case that had been set for trial next month, where Boeing stood accused of misleading federal regulators about the 737 MAX’s flight control system, the MCAS—central to both crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia in 2018 and 2019.
Most of the families have already settled civil claims with Boeing. Billions have been paid. But this criminal case was meant to be something more—about accountability, not compensation.
Back in 2023, a federal judge described Boeing’s conduct as potentially the deadliest corporate crime in U.S. history. Today, the record books will show no conviction—only a checkbook and a signature.
