The act of misleading federal regulators who were reportedly investigating not just one but two plane crashes now turned out to be a really bad idea. On Thursday, the official Department of Justice had just announced that Boeing has been charged with a specific conspiracy to defraud a certain government agency that was in the process of evaluating the company's very own 737 Max airplane.
Is Boeing 737 MAX dangerous?
According to the story by arsTechnica, as a certain result of the alleged misleading statements, omissions, and half-truths by the Boeing Employees, to the official Federal Aviation Authority's very own Aircraft Evaluation Group, Boeing has now agreed to pay over $2.5 billion as part of a certain deferred prosecution agreement. This includes the criminal penalty of a wwhopping $243 million, compensation to the heirs of the 346 crash victims with $500 million, and also $1.77 billion for the company to compensate the airline customers.
Boeing's current problem with its own "best-selling" 737 Max started back in October 2018 when the supposed Lion Air Flight 610 had crashed into the Java Sea and killed a massive 189 people. The following March, a certain Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 had crashed shortly after takeoff in Ethiopia that killed 157 people. Both of these crashes reportedly had the same cause, it was pointing to the plane's own Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System otherwise known as MCAS.
Why is the 737 MAX so dangerous?
When Boeing initially designed the 737 Max, it actually added certain larger turbofan engines that had also been used on the earlier 737 variants. This then changed the aerodynamics characteristics of the whole plane in comparison to the older models. Instead of making pilots certify on this specific new type, Boeing then used the MCAS in order to allow the 737 Max to be able to mimic the actual handling of the previous 737s.
Sadly, the MCAS was not actually as safe as Boeing had claimed them to be. It was found that the safety feature would actually alert the pilots to a potential sensor disagreement and was actually an optional extra. This was the one that neither Ethiopian Airlines nor Lion Air purchased.
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Is Boeing 737 Max still grounded?
A number of countries all around the world had grounded the 737 Max as a result of this finding. Boeing had apologized and started working on the software fix. The work, however, was delayed once more and has cost the job of CEO Dennis Muilenburg to leave Boeing now looking for a whopping $10 billion loan in order to survive. The 737 Max was yet again cleared for flight by the FAA back in November 2020, according to abcNews.
According to US Attorney Erin Nealy Cox for the official Northern District of Texas in a certain press release, the message is clear, the Department of Justice will be holding manufacturers just like Boeing accountable for their act of defrauding regulators.
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Written by Urian Buenconsejo
