WASHINGTON - Boeing will plead guilty to fraud as part of a deal with the US Department of Justice over two fatal 737 MAX crashes, according to a court filing.
The agreement comes after prosecutors concluded Boeing flouted an earlier settlement addressing the disasters, in which a total of 346 people were killed in Ethiopia and Indonesia more than five years ago.
The plea deal must be approved by a federal court judge and it includes an additional $243.6-million to be paid by Boeing on top of a previous fine of the same amount.
"We will continue to work transparently with our regulators as we take significant actions across Boeing to further strengthen our safety, quality and compliance programs," a spokesperson for the aircraft manufacturer told AFP while confirming the court filing.
The high-profile agreement follows the DOJ finding in May that Boeing failed to improve its compliance and ethics program, in breach of a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) in the wake of the MAX crashes.
Boeing violated the DPA "by failing to sufficiently design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of US fraud laws throughout its operations," the prosecutor said in court documents.
Boeing conspired to defraud US air traffic safety regulators about the Max 737 while the aircraft was being certified, according to the filing.
Boeing admitted in April 2019 that anti-stall flight software was partly to blame in the crashes.
Terms of the plea deal call for Boeing to serve three years of "organizational probation", conditions of which include having an independent monitor and investing at least $455-million on compliance, quality and safety programs, according to the filing.