Boeing pleads NOT GUILTY in Texas court to deceiving regulators about plane safety ‘issues’

Aircraft manufacturer Boeing has pleaded not guilty to charges the manufacturer deceived federal authorities over the safety of its 737 MAX jets following two high-profile crashes in 2018 and 2019.

Boeing’s chief safety officer, Mike Delaney, entered the not-guilty plea on behalf of the plane-maker in an arraignment Thursday. A not-guilty plea is standard in deferred prosecution agreements.

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor last week ordered Boeing to appear to be arraigned after he ruled that people killed in the two Boeing 737 MAX crashes, which occurred in Indonesia and Ethiopia, are legally considered ‘crime victims.’

The two crashes killed a total of 346 people, and left all Max jets grounded worldwide for nearly two years. They also cost Boeing more than $20 billion, and led to a 20-month grounding for the best-selling plane.

The aircraft manufacturer pleaded not guilty to charges charges the manufacturer deceived federal authorities over the safety of its 737 MAX jet, following two crashes in 2018 and 2019

The not-guilty plea from the manufacturer comes after families of 350 killed in the two high profile crashes have called for increased transparency on the safety of its bestselling jet

They were cleared to fly again after Boeing overhauled an automated flight-control system that activated erroneously in both crashes.

Families of the nearly 350 killed in the 2018 crash in Indonesia and the 2019 crash in Ethiopia had objected to a plea deal aired last week, and want O’Connor to name an independent monitor to oversee Boeing’s compliance.

They are also demanding the judge impose a standard condition that Boeing commit no new crimes, and disclose to the public, as much as possible, of the moves its corporate compliance office have adopted since 2021 to avoid such incidents.

Under a deal with the Justice Department in 2021, it agreed not to prosecute the company for conspiracy to defraud the government.

Both Boeing and the Justice Department have since opposed reopening the agreement, under which the plane manufacturer doled out $500million in victim compensation, a $243.6million fine and a whopping $1.7billion compensation to airlines that had to ground their fleets.

The aircraft manufacturer pleaded not guilty to charges charges the manufacturer deceived federal authorities over the safety of its 737 MAX jets

Investigators with the U.S. National Transportation and Safety Board (NTSB) look over debris at the crash site of Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302 on March 12, 2019 in Bishoftu, Ethiopia

In a court filing in November, the Justice Department said it did not oppose an arraignment for Boeing, but said undoing the agreement ‘would impose serious hardships on the parties and the many victims who have received compensation.’

Boeing also said in court filings that it opposes any efforts to reopen the agreement, calling it ‘unprecedented, unworkable and inequitable.’

The Arlington, Virginia-based plane manufacturer declined to comment when reached by DailyMail.com.