Boeing Moves Past “Go”: SEC Collects $200m

The Boeing Company has agreed to pay $200 million (USD) to quell the United States’ Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) allegations that the Boeing Company willfully neglected to fully disclose safety issues plaguing its 737 Max jet fleet, and which ultimately claimed the lives of 346 persons in two separate crashes; Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in 2018 and 2019 respectively.

The 737 Max airplane crashes and the apparent inaction, for a time, caught attention worldwide. 

Public outrage followed by a worldwide grounding of a few hundred such aircraft across 59 airlines while finger-pointing, denials, and allegations were flying high. It took Boeing several months to regroup and find a satisfactory solution, but public skepticism was still flying high up there with the jet streams. While the FAA tried to break out the 4ft whipping cane to issue an Airworthiness Directive mandating corrective action before those birds left the tarmac, it also became common knowledge that in recent years, the FAA had abdicated its throne of responsibility involving the stage checks and periodic inspections. They had essentially left the fox in charge of the hen house and naïvely expected an accurate accounting of issues and resolutions which, ultimately, was not forthcoming. 

A FAA newsroom update on 8 April 2021 stated that Boeing notified that FAA that they are “recommending that operators of certain Boeing 737 MAX airplanes temporarily remove them from service to address a manufacturing issue that could affect the operation of a backup power control unit”, and the text of the final Airworthiness Directive was published by the FAA on 9 August 2021.

Allegedly, deep pockets permitted Boeing to admit criminal misconduct, deny guilt in misleading regulators and pay $2.5 billion (most of which went to the airlines), but little relief to the families impacted (who opposed the deal) because, according to the DOJ, “those who perished were not victims of a crime”. Will Boeing and other manufacturers keep their nose clean from here on out, or will they (most likely) at some precipitous point in the future (when many have forgotten this entirely avoidable disaster), start anew down a different winding road in the name of profits while putting others in peril? Time will tell... 

FMI: https://boeing.com, https://www.faa.gov/newsroom/faa-updates-boeing-737-max-0