Families of plane crash victims ask US appeals court to revive a criminal case against Boeing

Thirty-one families that lost relatives in two fatal crashes of Boeing 737 Max jetliners asked a federal appeals court on Thursday to revive a criminal case against the aircraft manufacturer.

Paul Cassell, a lawyer for the families, urged a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to overturn a lower court's dismissal of a criminal conspiracy charge Boeing faced for allegedly misleading Federal Aviation Administration regulators about a flight-control system tied to the crashes, which killed 346 people.

The dismissal came at the request of the U.S. government after it reached a deal with Boeing that allowed the company to avoid prosecution in exchange for paying or investing an additional $1.1 billion in fines, compensation for victims’ families, and internal safety and quality measures.

Cassell said Thursday that federal prosecutors violated the families’ rights by failing to properly consult them before striking the deal and shutting them out of the process.

Federal prosecutors countered that, for years, the government, “has solicited and weighed the views of the crash victims’ families as it’s decided whether and how to prosecute the Boeing Company.”

More than a dozen family members attended Thursday's hearing in New Orleans, and Cassell said many more “around the globe" listened to a livestream of the arguments.

“I feel that there wouldn't be meaningful accountability without a trial,” Paul Njoroge said in a statement after the hearing. Njoroge, who lives in Canada, lost his entire family in the second of the two crashes — his wife, Carolyne, their children, ages 6, 4 and 9 months, and his mother-in-law.

All passengers and crew died when the 737 Max jets crashed less than five months apart in 2018 and 2019 — a Lion Air flight that plunged into the sea off the coast of Indonesia and an Ethiopian Airlines flight that crashed into a field shortly after takeoff.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Texas, who oversaw the case for years, issued a written decision in November that described the families’ arguments as compelling. But O'Connor said federal judges couldn’t block a charge dismissal simply because they disagreed with the government’s view that a settlement deal served the public interest.

The judge also concluded that federal prosecutors hadn’t acted in bad faith, had explained their decision and had met their obligations under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act.

In the case of its deal with Boeing, the Justice Department had argued that given the possibility a jury might acquit the company, taking the case to trial carried a risk that Boeing would be spared any further punishment.

Boeing attorney Paul Clement said Thursday that more than 60 families of crash victims "affirmatively supported” the deal and dozens more did not oppose it.

“Boeing deeply regrets” the tragic crashes, Clement said, and “has taken extraordinary steps to improve its internal processes and has paid substantial compensation" to the victims' families.

The appeals court panel that heard the arguments said it would issue a decision at a later date.

The criminal case took many twists and turns after the Justice Department first charged Boeing in 2021 with defrauding the government but agreed not to prosecute if the company paid a settlement and took steps to comply with anti-fraud laws.

However, federal prosecutors determined in 2024 that Boeing had violated the agreement, and the company agreed to plead guilty to the charge. O’Connor later rejected that plea deal, however, and directed the two sides to resume negotiations. The Justice Department returned last year with the new deal and its request to withdraw the criminal charge.

The case centered around a software system that Boeing developed for the 737 Max, which airlines began flying in 2017. The plane was Boeing’s answer to a new, more fuel-efficient model from European rival Airbus, and Boeing billed it as an updated 737 that wouldn’t require much additional pilot training.

But the Max did include significant changes, some of which Boeing downplayed — most notably, the addition of an automated flight-control system designed to help account for the plane’s larger engines. Boeing didn’t mention the system in airplane manuals, and most pilots didn’t know about it.

In both of the deadly crashes, that software pitched the nose of the plane down repeatedly based on faulty readings from a single sensor, and pilots flying for Lion Air and Ethiopian Airlines were unable to regain control. After the Ethiopia crash, the planes were grounded worldwide for 20 months.

Investigators found that Boeing did not inform key Federal Aviation Administration personnel about changes it had made to the software before regulators set pilot training requirements for the Max and certified the airliner for flight.