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Boeing plant in Washington state (archive image)
Photo: Ellen M. Banner / AP
The defects in the 737 Max aircraft have been causing excitement and billions in losses in the Boeing Group for years.
Now there is likely to be another legal aftermath.
A judge in the US state of Delaware allows a lawsuit by Boeing shareholders against the company's board of directors for two crashes with many fatalities.
It has been proven that the board of directors lied about whether and how they monitored the safety of the 737 Max, the verdict on Tuesday said.
The first of the two crashes was a "warning" regarding a bug in the MCAS security system, "which the board should have taken into account but instead ignored," the court said.
That the board of directors knowingly failed is also shown by the fact that it stated at the time that it had taken certain measures to monitor security, which it had not actually taken.
The then Boeing director and current company boss Dave Calhoun had testified that the board of directors was informed "immediately and by and large" after the first crash of a Lion Air machine and then met "very, very quickly".
Even after the second crash - a plane operated by Ethiopian Airlines - the board of directors met within 24 hours of the accident to discuss a possible flight ban on the 737 Max.
"Each of Calhoun's accounts was wrong," said the court ruling.
Recently more planes delivered
Boeing was initially unavailable for comment.
A total of 346 people were killed in the crashes.
The 737 Max has been banned from flying for 20 months by the US aviation authority FAA and can now take off again under strict conditions after an overhaul.
Most recently, Boeing had just recovered a little after the double burden of the 737 Max crisis and pandemic.
According to its order balance published on Tuesday, the company delivered 45 jets in June and thus achieved the best monthly figure since March 2019. With 33 machines, the majority were from the 737 Max series.
In the first half of 2021, Boeing has already handed over 156 aircraft to customers - that's one more machine than in the whole of last year.
The order situation of the Airbus arch-rival has also improved considerably in the past few months thanks to the re-registration of the 737 Max.
New problem with another jet model
In July, however, it became known that the group had to significantly reduce its delivery targets due to new production defects in the 787 "Dreamliner" long-haul jet.
Boeing expects to be able to deliver less than half of the 787 machines currently in stock this year.
Therefore, the production of the model type will be temporarily throttled.
The FAA had previously announced that the already ongoing inspections of the "Dreamliner" had discovered new problems and that Boeing would no longer deliver machines in stock for the time being.
jok / Reuters
