Boeing agrees to pay $2.5 billion to resolve federal criminal charge over 737 Max conspiracy
Source: Washington Post
The Justice Department said Boeing has agreed to pay more than $2.5 billion to resolve a charge that it conspired to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration during its review of the 737 Max, the airliner that was involved in a pair of deadly crashes that killed 346 people.
David P. Burns, acting assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, said the crashes “exposed fraudulent and deceptive conduct by employees of one of the world’s leading commercial airplane manufacturers.”b“Boeing’s employees chose the path of profit over candor by concealing material information from the FAA concerning the operation of its 737 Max airplane and engaging in an effort to cover up their deception,” Burns said in a statement.
The Justice Department said Boeing has admitted that two of its technical pilots deceived federal safety regulators about a software system that was implicated in both crashes. As a result of their deception, the department said, airplane manuals and training documents lacked information about the system.
The first Max crashed off the coast of Indonesia in October 2018, with another jet crashing in Ethiopia the following March. The second crash led to the Max being grounded worldwide and it was only approved by the FAA to fly again in November, following design changes to the computer system.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/trafficandcommuting/boeing-agrees-to-pay-25-billion-to-resolve-federal-criminal-charge-over-737-max-conspiracy/2021/01/07/4a090fdc-512d-11eb-bda4-615aaefd0555_story.html
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Is it just me? 
it may yet be awhile before they are able to investigate enough to determine who the culpability would be applied to, and then go with the criminal charges.
IIRC, "someone" made a decision to monetize (charge extra for) what should have been a standard safety feature on that plane, that would alert to certain adverse conditions that might cause a catastrophic failure. Buyers would have had to purchase the "enhanced package" of software for the plane in order to get that set of alerts. 