Boeing has agreed to plead guilty to a felony fraud charge and pay a new fine in connection with two 737 Max 8 crashes that killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a court filing on Sunday night.

If approved by a judge, the plea agreement will allow the beleaguered aerospace titan to avert a federal criminal trial on a charge that it conspired to defraud federal regulators about its 737 Max 8 and requirements for pilot training.

News of the proposed agreement came after the Department of Justice determined that Boeing, which experienced another safety failure in recent months, had violated the terms of a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement — that included a fine, a payout to airlines and a fund for crash victims’ families — by failing to create and enforce an anti-fraud ethics and compliance program.

In the 2021 documentary Boeing’s Fatal Flaw, updated in March 2024, FRONTLINE and The New York Times probed the chain of events that led up to two Boeing 737 Max 8 planes crashing shortly after takeoff  — first Lion Air Flight 610 in October 2018, and then Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in March 2019.

Drawing on extensive reporting from a team of New York Times investigative journalists, as well as original interviews with key sources, the documentary examined what Boeing knew about the potential for disaster with its 737 Max 8 jet, and when the company knew it. The film traced how market pressures, corporate culture and failed regulatory oversight ushered a plane with a fatal design flaw into commercial service — and examined the human toll.

As the documentary detailed, both 737 Max crashes involved a software system, MCAS, that was supposed to keep people safe — but instead contributed to tragic deaths when triggered by a single faulty sensor.

There were early signs of trouble. Doug Pasternak, who led a 2019-2020 congressional investigation into the 737 Max, said in the film that a Boeing test pilot experienced a “catastrophic event” involving MCAS when flying the Max in a simulator back in 2012. “It showed that if that had been in real life, he could have lost the airplane,” Pasternak said. “They realize from that moment on, even a Boeing test pilot may have trouble responding to MCAS.”

Yet internal communications explored in the documentary show that Boeing was determined to maintain the status quo: avoiding potential scrutiny by the Federal Aviation Administration that would add costs; keeping new simulator training for pilots to a minimum; and even requesting that MCAS be removed from pilot training manuals.

As Boeing’s Fatal Flaw reported, in the wake of the first deadly 737 Max crash, the company began working on a fix and issued an advisory to pilots about potential malfunctions. But the company stood by its new commercial jet and suggested pilot error played a role, and the FAA did not ground the planes.

Some five months later came the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302.

“If MCAS hadn’t been on those planes, those planes wouldn’t have crashed,” David Gelles of The New York Times says in the documentary. “It’s that simple.”

Boeing declined to be interviewed for Boeing’s Fatal Flaw. In a statement at the time, the company said safety is its top priority and it has worked closely with regulators, investigators and stakeholders “to implement changes that ensure accidents like these never happen again.” The FAA said in a statement at the time that it had not focused on MCAS when it certified the 737 Max 8 because Boeing had not identified MCAS as significant.

READ MORE: What Has Happened to Boeing Since the 737 Max Crashes

Boeing’s Fatal Flaw featured the stories of people whose family members died in the 737 Max crashes.

“I know that she wasn’t afraid of flying at all, until the last six minutes of her life,” Nadia Milleron, whose 24-year-old daughter, Samya Stumo, died aboard Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, said in the film. “That’s just a horrible betrayal that Boeing and the FAA caused for this person, the last moments of their life, and it kills me that that trust was betrayed.”

The newly proposed plea agreement would fine Boeing $487.2 million, with a judge deciding whether or not to apply Boeing’s previous $243.6 million fine towards that total. The agreement, which is being written up and would be formally filed by July 19 according to Sunday night’s court document, would also see the company commit to investing a minimum of $455 million in safety and compliance programs over the course of a three-year probationary period, require an independent monitor to oversee compliance at Boeing for that probationary period, and mandate that the company’s board of directors meet with crash victims’ families. Boeing confirmed in a statement Monday that it had reached “an agreement in principle on terms of a resolution with the Justice Department, subject to the memorialization and approval of specific terms.”

The Sunday night court filing said that the DOJ had been in communication with a number of the crash victims’ families about the plea deal’s development, and that the families planned to oppose it. The families had previously asked the DOJ to prosecute Boeing and to impose a far larger fine.

“This sweetheart deal fails to recognize that because of Boeing’s conspiracy, 346 people died,” Paul G. Cassell, a lawyer for a number of the families, told The New York Times.

Following news of the proposed plea agreement, Cassell and other lawyers for some of the families filed a notice that they intend to urge the judge in the case to reject the deal.

“The families intend to argue that the plea deal with Boeing unfairly makes concessions to Boeing that other criminal defendants would never receive and fails to hold Boeing accountable for the deaths of 346 persons,” the document said. “As a result, the generous plea agreement rests on deceptive and offensive premises.”

Patrice Taddonio, Senior Digital Writer, FRONTLINE

Twitter:

@ptaddonio