88 Million Cases and the Flying Coffins

The world makes a leap to reach 88 million Covid-19 cases and 1.9 million deaths worldwide. I've said already it never rains but it pours. And it is still pouring. A real drencher!

Boeing have been fined $2.5 billion by the US justice department after being charged with fraud and conspiracy in connection with two fatal crashes of its 737 Max airliner. The settlement includes $2.2 billion in compensation to the families of the people killed in the two Max crashes and a $243 million fine. 

Boeing’s employees chose “the path of profit over candor by concealing material information” from the Federal Aviation Administration, the US’s top airline regulator, David Burns, the acting assistant attorney general of the justice department’s criminal division, wrote in a release. 

Burns said the company had also engaged “in an effort to cover up their deception”. 

The Max was grounded worldwide in March 2019 after crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia that killed 346 people. 

A March 2020 congressional investigation concluded that Boeing promoted a “culture of concealment” and was “grossly inefficient” in its oversight of the Max’s development. At a heated congressional hearing in October 2019, Senator Richard Blumenthal accused Boeing of selling “flying coffins” as a result of their decision to conceal issues with the planes from pilots. 

In a statement, Boeing once more blamed their former employees. Of course, it’s easier to pin the blame on staff who have left lah.