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Judge Forces Boeing to Appear in Court for MAX Crash Charge

Families of victims who died in two Boeing 737 MAX crashes have objected to the company’s plea deal from 2021.

The Boeing Company has been ordered to appear in court on Jan. 26 for an arraignment on a felony charge stemming from the two devastating 737 MAX crashes after families of victims spoke out against the company’s $2.5 billion plea agreement from 2021, according to Reuters. For months, the families have been pushing federal prosecutors and Judge Reed O’Connor to undo the company’s criminal immunity that was stipulated in the deferred prosecution agreement, Reuters reported. The Justice Department “lied and violated their rights through a secret process,” the families claimed. In turn, the feds have opposed overturning the deal, insisting that it “would impose serious hardships on the parties and the many victims who have received compensation.” In October, O’Connor ruled that the people who died in the 2018 and 2019 crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia were legally “crime victims.”