Families of victims killed in the 737 MAX crashes have claimed that the U.S. Justice Department violated them when it reached a bilateral deferred prosecution agreement (with Boeing) in January.
The relatives of the victims filed a motion Thursday alleging that the United States Government lied to and violated their rights by secretly allowing Boeing escape from criminal prosecution.
Boeing test pilot Mark Forkner, a Boeing aircraft manufacturer, is not being charged criminally in connection to the two 737 MAX crash that resulted in 346 deaths in 2018, and 2019.
Now the families of two victims have asked a U.S. judge to declare that the order violated victims´ families rights to rescind Boeing’s immunity from criminal prosecution that was part of the $2.5 billion agreement.
Families of victims killed in the 737 MAX plane crash claim that the U.S. Justice Department violated them when it reached a delayed prosecution agreement with Boeing. Pictured: Family members pose with photos of Ethiopian 302 victims at a Congressional hearing
People pass a portion of the crash scene for Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302 near Bishoftu. It is southeast of Addis Ababa.
Jared Babu Mwazo’s and Mick Ryan’s families brought this motion. Both were killed in the Ethiopian Flight 302 crashes.
Attorney Paul G. Cassell said that Boeing and Government had deliberately excluded people who would be most interested in the negotiation: victims’ families. Cassell is a former federal judge and now a University of Utah professor of law. Cassell is considered one of America’s foremost experts on victims of crime.
The Government cannot secretly craft a DPA that would cover a grave felony offense, even one that grants Boeing immunity. In concealing its negotiations from Boeing’s victims, the Government plainly violated the Crime Victims’ Rights Act – a broad bill of rights protecting victims of federal crimes.’
Jared Babu Mwazo and Mick Ryan, both of whom died in the Ethiopian Flight 302 accident, brought the motion.
Family members of victims want the government to meet with them, provide evidence about Boeing’s crimes, and for Boeing to make a public appearance where they can all be heard.
The court is also asked to supervise the DPA, which could include revoking the immunity provision.
“If the U.S. Justice Department had informed us that we have the right to confer about the crime associated with the crash,” Naoise Connolly Ryan, Mick Ryan’s widow, said in a statement to DailyMail.com.
The U.S. National Transportation and Safety Board, (NTSB), inspects debris found at the site of the Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302 crash on March 12, 2019, in Bishoftu.
She added, “We would like to have noted that Boeing employees whose conduct forms the basis of this Deferred Prosecution Agreement were acting for Boeing’s program objectives, which are set at high levels within the company,”
Boeing must be tried fully. Trump’s agreement is nothing more than a handshake that holds no executive responsible.
Forkner, Boeing’s former chief technical pilot, was charged with fraud for deceiving federal regulators evaluating the company’s 737 MAX jet.
Only Mark Forkner, a Boeing Test Pilot, has been criminally charged
His attorneys said this week that a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) official called him a ‘scapegoat’ for two fatal crashes.
Mark Forkner’s lawyers claimed that an FAA official who had personal knowledge about the 737 MAX contacted government officials and stated that Forkner was a scapegoat and shouldn’t be charged. On Monday, the court filed did not reveal the name of the official.
Boeing has not responded to requests for comment. The FAA didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. Northern Texas’ U.S. Attorney’s Office declined to comment.
The filing also included parts of a PowerPoint from an unnamed FAA employee that defense lawyers said contain new disclosures about a key system known as MCAS that should have been disclosed by Boeing´s engineering team.
The Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) is a software feature designed to automatically push the airplane´s nose down in certain conditions. It was involved in two crashes of 737 MAXs in Indonesia, and Ethiopia during a period of five months in 2018, and 2019. This resulted to 346 deaths and the FAA grounding the aircraft for twenty-four months. In November 2020.
According to the filing, Boeing engineers failed to disclose important details about MCAS (or FAA) to Forkner and Forkner. This included that MCAS might activate even though it wasn’t intended following a single defective sensor.
Boeing and the Justice Department reached an agreement for $2.5 billion to defer prosecution in January. This was due to Boeing’s involvement with the MAX accidents, which have cost Boeing over $20 billion.
PowerPoint stated that the 737 MAX crash was caused by a failure in the engineering process. It also argued that the Forkner criminal prosecutions and training ‘are not only wrong and misguided but distract from the true lessons.
A few excerpts from the presentation were made public to indicate that it addressed a potential miscarriage or justice.
A U.S. judge was asked by lawyers to grant permission for current and former FAA employees to speak with Forkner’s defense teams ahead of the February trial. The redacted document appears to reveal that Forkner’s lawyers want to meet with two FAA officials currently in office and one former employee.
Six counts were brought against Forkner for scheming and defrauding Boeing’s U.S.-based airlines customers. This was to enable them to receive tens or millions of dollars from Boeing. According to his lawyers, they weren’t allowed to discuss the PowerPoint author.
The indictment states that Forkner provided a lot of false, incorrect, and incomplete information to the FAA Aircraft Evaluation Group about MCAS, mainly in 2017 before the FAA approved the 737 MAX. Forkner has pleaded guilty.