A door of an Alaska Airlines 737 Max blew out midflight last month, which has renewed scrutiny of Boeing’s safety practices. (Credit: National Transportation Safety Board via flickr)
The blowout of a door on a nearly new Alaska Airlines Boeing 737 Max last month occurred just two days before a Justice Department deferred prosecution agreement stemming from two 737 Max crashes six years ago was set to expire.
Under that 58-page pact, signed in January 2021 by Boeing General Counsel Brett Gerry and Boeing attorneys at Kirkland & Ellis and McGuireWoods, the company agreed to pay $2.5 billion to resolve a criminal charge that it defrauded the Federal Aviation Administration, and it agreed to take a range of remediation steps, including bolstering its compliance program and submitting quarterly compliance reports.
