Boeing pleads not guilty to fraud charge in 737 Max arraignment

Boeing pleaded not blameworthy connected Thursday to a 737 Max fraud conspiracy complaint felony complaint aft families objected to a 2021 Justice Department statement to resoluteness the probe into the plane's flawed design.

Boeing's main information officer, Mike Delaney, entered the not-guilty plea connected behalf of the planemaker. A not-guilty plea is modular successful deferred prosecution agreements.

U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor past week ordered Boeing to look to beryllium arraigned aft helium ruled that radical killed successful the 2 Boeing 737 Max crashes are legally considered "crime victims."

The crashes successful Indonesia and Ethiopia killed 346 people. They outgo Boeing much than $20 billion, led to a 20-month grounding for the best-selling level and prompted lawmakers to walk sweeping authorities reforming airplane certification.

The families privation O'Connor to sanction an autarkic show to oversee Boeing's compliance; enforce a modular information that Boeing perpetrate nary caller crimes; and disclose publically arsenic overmuch arsenic imaginable of the substance of Boeing's firm compliance efforts adopted since 2021.

Boeing Chief Executive Dave Calhoun told CNBC Wednesday the planemaker did not entity to the arraignment and expressed sympathy for the families. The Justice Department successful 2021 agreed to question dismissal of the complaint aft the three-year statement if Boeing complies with each terms. Boeing admitted successful tribunal documents that 2 of its method pilots deceived U.S. regulators astir a cardinal formation power strategy linked to some fatal crashes.

Relatives of radical killed were speaking Thursday astatine the arraignment. The relatives said successful the filing that Boeing had "committed the deadliest firm transgression successful U.S. history."

Boeing and the Justice Department reason reopening the $2.5 cardinal agreement, which included $500 cardinal successful unfortunate compensation, a $243.6 cardinal good and $1.7 cardinal successful compensation to airlines.

Boeing successful 2021 said it was accepting work for compensating families of those killed successful the crashes. Lawyers for the victims said Boeing admitted nether the statement "that the 737 Max had an unsafe condition, and that it volition not effort to blasted anyone else" for the crash.