Wednesday morning, a federal judge in Texas heard from families who lost loved ones in the Boeing 737 MAX Crashes in 2018 and 2019.
Those families are upset about a plea agreement the aerospace company reached with the federal government to avoid prosecution for those crashes. They want a full prosecution and a federal judge to rule in their favor.
KIRO 7 News spoke to Mark Lindquist— a former Pierce County prosecutor and an attorney who’s represented families in civil aviation cases.
He suspects Boeing’s plea deal will be upheld no matter what the families say in court today.
“Sometimes your best bet for justice in a case like this is accountability is a civil lawsuit,” he shared with KIRO 7.
The crashes killed 346 people off the coast of Indonesia and in Ethiopia and have led to years of legal conflict.
In January 2021, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) charged Boeing with conspiracy to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and its certification of the defective MAX 8 plane. They reached an initial deferred prosecution deal with Boeing and the families argued that the judge should reject the proposed NPA and instead set the case for trial in June. That trial date was vacated by the judge.
Then, in May 2024, the DOJ found that Boeing had breached the deferred prosecution agreement by failing to implement appropriate corporate compliance and safety measures.
Two months later, the DOJ and Boeing reached a guilty plea deal. The families objected and, in December 2024, a judge rejected the deal.
The new 2025 NPA asks Boeing to pay an additional $243.6 million as a penalty, pay an additional $444.5 million to the families, and make additional investments in safety. In exchange, the DOJ agreed to dismiss the criminal charges against Boeing.
The families of some of the crash victims, though, are pushing for criminal penalties.
Lindquist believes the DOJ and Boeing will maintain their plea agreement.
“From the beginning, it’s been clear that the DOJ was not going to bring the hammer down hard on Boeing,” he told KIRO 7. “When you’ve got the complexity all worked out by the DOJ and a major defendant like Boeing, the judge is going to accept.”
Federal prosecutors have said that Boeing misled regulators about a flight control system linked to both tragedies. Lindquist believes even with that, the plea agreement with DOJ is a win for the company.
“I fully expect the judge to accept the plea and everyone moves forward,” Lindquist said. “As criminal prosecutions go, Boeing got off as easily as it possibly could.”
A lot of Boeing’s manufacturing base is in Washington, and a full prosecution could be costly and time-consuming for the aerospace company as well as the DOJ.
While there is a chance that the judge could rule in favor of the families, Lindquist believes that won’t happen since federal judges often are willing to accept plea agreements if all parties have come to a resolution. He also says whatever the outcome of the hearing, any remaining civil lawsuits will be the only path to justice for the families.
©2025 Cox Media Group
