Boeing Lawsuits: 737 MAX Crashes, Criminal Case, and Verdicts

Lawsuits over the Boeing 737 MAX crashes have largely wound down. Nearly all wrongful death claims from the two crashes that killed 346 people in 2018 and 2019 have been settled or resolved by jury verdict, the federal criminal fraud case against Boeing was dismissed in November 2025 under a non-prosecution agreement, and a shareholder derivative suit ended in a $237.5 million settlement in 2022. A securities fraud class action tied to the 2024 Alaska Airlines door plug blowout is still pending on appeal, and victims’ families continue fighting the criminal dismissal.

Why Boeing Was Sued

Lion Air Flight 610 crashed into the Java Sea on October 29, 2018, killing all 189 people on board. On March 10, 2019, Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 went down near Ejere, Ethiopia, killing 157 passengers and crew from 35 countries. The FAA grounded the 737 MAX fleet worldwide on March 13, 2019.¹

Both crashes were traced to the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS. The system pushed the plane’s nose down based on data from a single angle-of-attack sensor, and when that sensor sent faulty readings, MCAS repeatedly forced the nose down every five seconds. Pilots could not overcome the trim commands with the elevator alone.² Boeing had discovered a related warning-alert defect in August 2017 but did not tell the FAA, airlines, or pilots until after the Lion Air crash.³ Because Boeing accepted liability, civil trials that reached juries focused only on compensation.

The Federal Criminal Case Against Boeing

On January 7, 2021, the Justice Department charged Boeing with one count of conspiracy to defraud the United States, alleging that two Boeing flight technical pilots had concealed information about MCAS from the FAA.¹

The 2021 Deferred Prosecution Agreement

Boeing entered a deferred prosecution agreement the same day. The company agreed to pay more than $2.5 billion, broken into a $243.6 million criminal fine, $1.77 billion in compensation for airline customers, and a $500 million fund for the heirs and relatives of the 346 crash victims. If Boeing complied for three years, the charge would be dismissed. The DPA did not include an independent compliance monitor.¹⁴

The $500 million fund, administered by Kenneth Feinberg and Camille Biros, was designed to pay each eligible family roughly $1.45 million. The claims portal has since closed, and the administrators said most claims have been approved and paid.⁵⁶

Victims’ families fought the deal. In October 2022, U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled that the families qualified as “crime victims” under the Crime Victims’ Rights Act and that prosecutors and Boeing had violated that law by cutting the DPA without conferring with them. In February 2023, however, he ruled that he lacked authority to reject or modify the DPA and denied the families the relief they wanted.⁴

The Breach, the Rejected Plea, and the Non-Prosecution Agreement

On January 5, 2024, a door panel blew out of an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9 in flight. By May 2024, the Justice Department had determined that Boeing violated the DPA. In July 2024, the parties negotiated a new plea agreement calling for Boeing to plead guilty, pay a total fine of $487.2 million (with credit for the $243.6 million already paid), accept an independent monitor for three years, and invest at least $455 million in safety and compliance programs.⁷

Judge O’Connor rejected that plea deal on December 5, 2024, objecting to diversity, equity, and inclusion criteria in the monitor selection process and to what he saw as a sidelining of the court’s oversight role.⁸⁹

Instead of reworking the guilty plea, the Trump administration’s DOJ struck a non-prosecution agreement with Boeing on May 29, 2025. The criminal charge was dismissed, and Boeing agreed to pay an additional $1.14 billion: $243.6 million as a penalty to the U.S. government, $444.5 million into a crash-victim beneficiaries fund, and $455 million to retain an independent compliance consultant of its own choosing.¹⁰¹¹¹²

The Fifth Circuit Appeal

On May 22, 2026, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the dismissal, holding that it had no authority to review a district court’s decision to grant a motion dismissing a criminal prosecution, and that the DOJ had complied with the Crime Victims’ Rights Act during the NPA negotiations. Attorney Paul Cassell, who represents the families, said the ruling “reveals how America’s criminal justice system continues to mistreat crime victims and their families.” The families may still petition for rehearing or seek review by the U.S. Supreme Court.¹³

Only one individual was ever criminally charged. Mark Forkner, Boeing’s former chief technical pilot on the 737 MAX, was indicted in October 2021 on fraud counts alleging he concealed MCAS changes from the FAA.¹⁴ A Fort Worth jury acquitted him of all charges on March 23, 2022.¹⁵

Wrongful Death Lawsuits by Victims’ Families

Dozens of wrongful death cases were filed in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. Ethiopian Airlines cases went to Judge Jorge Alonso; Lion Air cases went to Judge Thomas Durkin.¹⁶¹⁷ Boeing accepted liability, so trials that went forward addressed damages only. By November 2025, more than 90 percent of civil claims from both crashes had been resolved on confidential terms, and fewer than a dozen lawsuits remained.¹⁸

Two jury verdicts set benchmarks for the cases that did not settle.

The Garg Verdict

In November 2025, a federal jury in Chicago awarded more than $28 million to the family of Shikha Garg, a 32-year-old United Nations environmental worker killed on Flight 302, including $10 million for pre-crash pain and suffering. Boeing later reached a deal with her husband that brought the total payout to $35.85 million, including 26 percent interest, in exchange for Boeing waiving any appeal.¹⁹²⁰

The Stumo Verdict

In May 2026, a jury awarded $49.5 million to the family of Samya Stumo, a 24-year-old nonprofit worker also killed on Flight 302. The award included $21 million for Stumo’s experience on the flight, $16.5 million for loss of companionship, and $12 million for the family’s grief. Her family’s attorneys said they intend to appeal an earlier dismissal of their punitive damages claims against Boeing executives and suppliers.²¹²² The verdict resolved one of the last remaining wrongful death lawsuits from the two crashes.²³

Vaidya and Other Late Settlements

Manant Vaidya, a Canadian who lost six family members on Flight 302, reached a confidential settlement on January 13, 2026, after a jury had been selected and just before opening statements. Three of his relatives’ cases had already settled in 2025. He was represented by Robert Clifford of Clifford Law Offices in Chicago.²⁴¹⁸

Lion Air Settlements

Lion Air families filed more than 50 lawsuits. Boeing began settling those cases in 2019, with early settlements reported at a minimum of $1.2 million per family. Boeing also created a separate $100 million compensation fund open to families from both crashes, offering $144,500 per family without requiring them to give up their right to sue.²⁵

Shareholder Lawsuits Against Boeing

The Derivative Suit

Boeing shareholders sued the company’s board of directors in Delaware Chancery Court, alleging a complete failure of oversight on airplane safety. Using Delaware’s inspection statute, plaintiffs obtained more than 630,000 pages of internal documents before filing. The consolidated complaint alleged the board had no formal process to oversee aircraft safety and no committee tasked with it, and had prioritized production speed and profits over engineering during the 737 MAX’s development.²⁶ The Chancery Court approved a $237.5 million settlement in February 2022, described at the time as the largest of its kind in Delaware history.²⁷

The Pending Securities Fraud Class Action

In January 2024, the Rhode Island State Treasurer’s office filed a securities fraud class action alleging that Boeing and senior executives violated federal securities law by publicly touting their commitment to safety and quality between 2019 and 2024 while the company continued to experience serious manufacturing and oversight failures. The complaint identifies the Alaska Airlines door plug blowout on January 5, 2024, as the event that exposed those claims as misleading. Boeing’s stock dropped about 19 percent between January 5 and January 25, 2024.²⁸

Judge Leonie Brinkema in the Eastern District of Virginia certified the case as a class action on March 7, 2025. Boeing appealed, and the Fourth Circuit granted review in May 2025. As of mid-2026, the appeal remains pending, with Boeing arguing that plaintiffs failed to provide sufficient proof of a classwide damages model.²⁹

The LOT Polish Airlines Fraud Verdict

Not all 737 MAX litigation has come from victims or investors. LOT Polish Airlines sued Boeing in 2021, alleging the company defrauded it by concealing information about MCAS and representing the 737 MAX as essentially the same aircraft as the 737 Next Generation, and sought damages from the 20-month global grounding. After a two-week trial in Seattle, a jury deliberated roughly three hours and found for Boeing on May 22, 2026, concluding that LOT had not met the “clear and convincing evidence” standard for fraud. Boeing also argued successfully that LOT leased its planes from third-party lessors rather than buying them from Boeing directly.³⁰³¹

What Boeing Has Paid

Across all the proceedings, Boeing has paid or committed billions of dollars: more than $2.5 billion under the original DPA, an additional $1.14 billion under the 2025 non-prosecution agreement, $237.5 million to settle the shareholder derivative case, and tens of millions more through individual jury verdicts and confidential settlements to victims’ families. Federal filings estimate the crashes cost Boeing about $20 billion in non-litigation expenses on top of more than $2.5 billion in direct litigation costs.¹⁰³²

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