By Alex Hammer For Dailymail.Com And Reuters

Aircraft manufacturer Boeing has pleaded not guilty to charges the manufacturer deceived federal authorities over the safety of its 737 MAX jets following two high-profile crashes in 2018 and 2019.

Boeing’s chief safety officer, Mike Delaney, entered the not-guilty plea on behalf of the plane-maker in an arraignment Thursday. A not-guilty plea is standard in deferred prosecution agreements.

It comes after US District Judge Reed O’Connor last week ordered Boeing to appear to be arraigned after he ruled that people killed in the two Boeing 737 MAX crashes are legally considered ‘crime victims.’

Today’s ruling marks the first time the company has been forced to publicly answer to a criminal charge connected to the 2018 and 2019 disasters, which occurred in Indonesia and Ethiopia, respectively.

The aircraft manufacturer pleaded not guilty to charges charges the manufacturer deceived federal authorities over the safety of its 737 MAX jet following two crashes in 2018 and 2019

The two crashes killed a total of 346 people, and left all Max jets grounded worldwide for nearly two years. They also cost Boeing more than US$20 billion, and led to a 20-month grounding for the best-selling plane.

The planes, however, were cleared to fly again in 2021, after Boeing overhauled an automated flight-control system that activated erroneously in both crashes, after promising to look into the plane’s safety issues.

US District Judge Reed O’Connor last week ordered Boeing to appear to be arraigned after he ruled that people killed in the two Boeing 737 MAX crashes are legally considered ‘ crime victims’

US District Judge Reed O’Connor last week ordered Boeing to appear to be arraigned after he ruled that people killed in the two Boeing 737 MAX crashes are legally considered ‘ crime victims’

Families of the nearly 350 killed in crashes, one of which transpired in 2018 in Indonesia and another in 2019 in Ethiopia, objected to a plea deal last week, and are calling for O’Connor name an independent body to oversee Boeing’s compliance.

They are also demanding the judge impose a standard condition that Boeing commit no new crimes, and disclose to the public, as much as possible, of the moves its corporate compliance office have adopted to avoid such incidents.

Under a controversial deal reached in 2021, the Justice Department had agreed not to prosecute the company for conspiracy to defraud the government, granting it legal immunity.

Families of the victims quickly spoke out against the decision, however, demanding justice for the victims. Both Boeing and the DOJ opposed reopening the agreement.

In a court filing in November, following more than a year of backlash, the Justice Department said it did not oppose an arraignment for Boeing, but said undoing the agreement ‘would impose serious hardships on the parties and the many victims who have received compensation.’

Boeing, however, said that it opposes any efforts to reopen the agreement, calling it ‘unprecedented, unworkable and inequitable.’

It comes as the Arlington, Virginia-based plane manufacturer has doled out US$500million in victim compensation to the families, as well a US$243.6million fine and US$1.7billion in further compensation to airlines grounded the disasters. The total settlement amounted to US$2.5billion.

The Arlington, Virginia-based plane manufacturer declined to comment when reached by DailyMail.com.

In a brief filed Wednesday, lawyers representing the relatives of some of the passengers killed in the two crashes accused the company of the ‘deadliest corporate crime in US history.’

The sprawling fraud conspiracy lawsuit comes five years after the launch of Boeing’s commercial jet in 2017, and four years after the aircraft’s first crash in Indonesia.

Officials, however, would only choose to ground 737s after a second crash, this time in Ethiopia, just five months later.

Boeing Max 737’s two deadly crashes: What happened?

Boeing was forced to ground the 737 Max after the crashes in Indonesia and Ethiopia happened less than six months apart.

The first disaster happened October 29, 2018, when a Max flying as Lion Air flight JT 610 fell into the Java Sea 15 minutes after taking off from Jakarta.

All 189 aboard the plane died, including 180 Indonesians, one Italian and one Indian.

The second crash occurred on March 10, 2019, when Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET 302, which also was a Max jet, took off from Bole International Airport in the Ethiopian capital and crashed.

All 157 people onboard the plane died.

US carriers American, United and Southwest had to cancel flights for the holidays, including over Christmas and into the new year, after the plane was grounded around the world. 

Boeing reported on July 14, 2019, that customers canceled orders for 60 of the grounded 737 MAX jets in June.

The aircraft maker removed another 123 planes from its backlog over doubts that the deals will be completed.

Following an investigation in 2020, Boeing blamed both crashes on a failure in the planes’ flight control system, which caused the plane’s to turn sharply downwards while in the air. 

737 MAX jets were once again cleared to fly in November 2021, after two years of being grounded, with Boeing at the time branding the planes safe for passengers

Boeing had previously agreed to a US$200million penalty from the Securities and Exchange Commission to settle charges that it ‘negligently violated the antifraud provisions,’ of US securities law.

The agency argued that just one month after the first crash, the company ‘selectively highlighted certain facts, implying pilot error and poor aircraft maintenance’ was what led to the crashes, instead of a technical issue.

That release failed to disclose that the company knew a key flight handling system, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System posed safety issues and was never redesigned, the SEC argued.

Then, after the second crash, the agency said, Boeing and Muilenburg assured the public that there was ‘no surprise or gap’ in the federal certification of the MAX despite being aware of contrary information.

‘In times of crisis and tragedy, it is especially important that public companies and executives provide full, fair, and truthful disclosures to the markets,’ said SEC Chair Gary Gensler in a press release.

‘The Boeing Company and its former CEO, Dennis Muilenburg, failed in this most basic obligation. They misled investors by providing assurances about the safety of the 737 MAX, despite knowing about serious safety concerns.’

The SEC said both Boeing and Muilenburg, in agreeing to pay the penalties, did not admit or deny the agency’s findings.

Boeing said the agreement ‘fully resolves’ the SEC’s inquiry and is part of the company’s ‘broader effort to responsibly resolve outstanding legal matters related to the 737 MAX accidents in a manner that serves the best interests of our shareholders, employees, and other stakeholders,’ a company spokesman said.

‘We will never forget those lost on Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, and we have made broad and deep changes across our company in response to those accidents.’