STORY: A judge has thrown out Boeing’s plea deal over two fatal crashes of its 737 MAX jets.
The incidents killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019, and were traced to a design flaw.
Relatives of the victims had called the firm’s agreement with the Department of Justice a “sweetheart” deal that failed to hold the firm accountable.
Now a judge in Texas has rejected it.
He seized on a problem in one sentence of the agreement, covering diversity and inclusion.
Legal experts say it’s highly unusual for a judge to upend a deal over something the parties to it had not disputed.
They say it usually signals that the judge wants to impose a different punishment than the one agreed.
A lawyer for the victims’ families called the decision an “important victory”.
He said he hoped it would lead to a renegotiation of the deal to address the passengers and crew who perished in the crashes.
The company and the DOJ could now appeal the rejection, or present a new agreement.
Meanwhile, Boeing’s headaches over the 737 MAX continue.
Federal Aviation Administration boss Mike Whitaker said Thursday that the firm still hadn’t resumed making the jets following a strike by machinists.
Drone video showed uncompleted planes sitting on railcars in Seattle.
Whitaker says Boeing now hopes to resume output later this month.
Production was already capped before the strike, following a midair blowout on one of the planes earlier this year.
That led regulators to put extra scrutiny on the company’s manufacturing standards.
