UPDATE: A judge has dismissed Boeing’s appeal over two fatal crashes of its 737 MAX planes.
These incidents killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019, and were traced to a design flaw.
Relatives of the victims called the firm’s deal with the Department of Justice a “sweetheart” deal that failed to hold the company accountable.
Now a Texas judge has overturned it.
He caught the problem in one sentence of the agreement, which includes diversity and inclusion.
Legal experts say it is unusual for a judge to reverse a deal over something they did not dispute.
They say it usually indicates that the judge wants to impose a different punishment than the one agreed upon.
A lawyer for the victims’ families called the decision “an important victory”.
He said he hoped that it would lead to a renegotiation of the agreement to deal with passengers and workers who died in accidents.
The company and the DOJ can now appeal the rejection, or introduce a new settlement.
Meanwhile, Boeing heads over the 737 MAX.
The head of the Federal Aviation Administration, Mike Whitaker, said on Thursday that the company had not yet started making these planes following the machinists’ strike.
Drone video showed unfinished planes sitting on train cars in Seattle.
Whitaker says Boeing now hopes to resume operations by the end of this month.
Production had already been shut down before the strike, following the bombing of one of the planes earlier this year.
That led regulators to take a closer look at the company’s manufacturing standards.
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