DOJ Finds Boeing Breached Deferred Prosecution Agreement After Door Plug Blowout

The Department of Justice notified Boeing and the federal court that Boeing breached its January 2021 deferred prosecution agreement by failing to maintain the required compliance and ethics program. The finding came after the January 5, 2024 Alaska Airlines door plug blowout revealed that Boeing had not implemented the safety and quality control reforms required by the DPA. The DOJ determined that Boeing violated multiple provisions of the agreement “by failing to design, implement, and enforce a compliance and ethics program to prevent and detect violations of the U.S. fraud laws throughout its operations.”

The breach determination meant Boeing was now subject to criminal prosecution for the original fraud charges and any other federal crimes. The 2021 deferred prosecution agreement had allowed Boeing to avoid a criminal conviction for conspiracy to defraud the FAA in connection with the 737 MAX certification, contingent on maintaining robust compliance programs for three years. The Alaska Airlines incident—where four critical bolts were never installed on a door plug, nearly causing catastrophic loss of life—proved Boeing had failed to implement basic quality control despite the DPA requirements.

The DOJ’s letter to the court stated: “For failing to fulfill completely the terms of and obligations under the [deferred prosecution agreement], Boeing is subject to prosecution by the United States for any federal criminal violation of which the United States has knowledge.” This statement acknowledged that the government had given Boeing a chance to reform after 346 deaths, and the company had squandered that opportunity within three years, committing new safety violations that endangered hundreds more passengers.

Boeing disputed the finding, claiming it had honored the DPA terms. This response demonstrated the company’s fundamental lack of accountability: even after the NTSB documented systematic manufacturing failures and quality control breakdowns that caused the door plug blowout, Boeing insisted it had maintained adequate compliance programs. The company’s denial proved that the deferred prosecution agreement had taught executives nothing except that they could violate agreements with impunity.

Families of the 737 MAX crash victims immediately called for Boeing to be prosecuted for the breach. They had opposed the original DPA as too lenient and insufficient to ensure reform. The door plug blowout and DPA breach vindicated their position: deferred prosecution allows corporate criminals to continue committing crimes. Despite the DOJ’s finding of breach and Boeing’s clear recidivism, the agency would ultimately decline to prosecute Boeing executives, instead negotiating yet another deferred prosecution agreement. The cycle of corporate crime, weak enforcement, breach, and renewed weak enforcement continued uninterrupted.