Boeing has suffered a massive courtroom blow with a judge ordering a trial after two crashes which left 346 people dead.
The airline last July agreed to a plea deal with the Justice Department under then-President Joe Biden which would have seen Boeing pay a $487.2million fine and spend three years on 'probation' with external oversight.
But Judge Reed O'Connor rejected the deal at the time, citing concerns over a diversity, equity and inclusion clause. He gave both parties an April 2025 deadline to renegotiate the deal.
The Wall Street Journal on Monday reported Boeing intended to scrap the plea entirely in an effort to seek a more lenient deal with the Trump administration's newly appointed Justice Department officials.
But when the parties returned to court on Tuesday, Judge O'Connor made the shock decision to set a trial date for June.
This means Boeing is facing a scenario in which it may have to plead guilty to a charge in court, or defend against an allegation it already accepted guilt for when negotiating the plea deal.
The court battle stems from two plane crashes involving Boeing's bestselling airliner, the 737 Max Jetliner.
These crashes occurred just five months apart in 2018 and 2019, leaving 346 people dead off the coast of Indonesia and in Ethiopia.
Relatives of the victims called the plea a 'sweetheart deal' and pushed for former Boeing officials to be prosecuted, along with a public criminal trial and more severe financial punishment for the company.
Erin Applebaum, a lawyer representing 34 families of those killed in the 2019 MAX Ethiopian Airlines crash, urged the Justice Department 'to stand on the right side of history, reject any further plea negotiations, and move forward with a full prosecution.'
'The families deserve their day in court, and this opportunity for justice must not be squandered.'
But prosecutors previously said they did not have evidence to argue that Boeing's deception played a role in the crashes.
The rejected plea deal would have labeled Boeing a convicted felon for conspiring to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration about problematic software affecting the flight control systems in the planes that crashed during the MAX's certification.
In 2023, O'Connor said 'Boeing's crime may properly be considered the deadliest corporate crime in U.S. history.'
In May 2024, the DOJ found Boeing had violated a 2021 agreement that had shielded it from prosecution over the crashes. Prosecutors then decided to criminally charge Boeing and negotiate the current plea deal.
Trump administration officials have said regulators must be firm with Boeing after a series of missteps.
The Department of Justice declined to comment on the judge's action. A Boeing statement shed no light on the status of the negotiations.
'As stated in the parties' recent filings, Boeing and the Department of Justice continue to be engaged in good faith discussions regarding an appropriate resolution of this matter,' the company said.
