Partner
“There’s an old saying in Tennessee — I know it’s in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can’t get fooled again.”
― George W. Bush
Today, the federal trial judge in Texas will hear from the families of 346 people aboard 737-800 MAX aircraft whose lives were snuffed out in Ethiopia and Indonesia in 2018 and 2019. Those families rightfully want the court to reject the plea deal and try Boeing in court.
Both crashes were caused by same fatal defects in Boeing’s design and failure to instruct pilots on how to manage a critical safety feature. The U.S. Department of Justice indicted Boeing for causing those crashes by defrauding the FAA. Boeing admitted it did so and promised to fix itself, leading the government to grant it a three-year oversight period in which to prove that to avoid a trial.
Our firm brought the first lawsuit to hold Boeing accountable for the shocking “door plug” incident aboard Alaska Airlines Flight 1282, a 737-900 MAX, on January 5, 2024. That terrible near-death event happened just two days before Boeing’s 2021 plea agreement was set to shield it from a full prosecution for the two 800 MAX disasters. The only good thing that resulted from the “door plug” blowout was that it exposed Boeing’s promise to fix its broken safety culture as empty.
Boeing has paid Alaska Airlines for lost profit caused by that incident, and yet continues to deny liability to the passengers, despite testimony in last August’s 2-day, 20-hour NTSB hearing that exposed the galling inattention to safety that led Boeing to roll that airliner out of its factory without four critical bolts necessary to hold it together in the air. The government’s effort to achieve proper accountability through negotiation and promises obviously failed when those promises proved to be empty.
We all want Boeing to succeed in building safe, reliable aircraft, both to keep families, friends and neighbors safe as well as employed. Our nation’s health, happiness, and prosperity greatly depend on it. Sadly, is now necessary to hit the mule on the head with a 2-by-4 to get its attention. The families of those who died in Ethiopia and Indonesia rightfully want the court to reject the 800 MAX plead deal and try Boeing in court for its obvious criminally reckless behavior fed by corporate greed and lies.