By Bob Walsh
The Boeing Company has pleaded
guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud the U. S. Government
(F.A.A. regulators) regarding the crash of two 737 MAX airliners. It
seems that they are likely to have to pay a fine of $243 million in
addition to fines already paid. They will also have a monitor installed
on their assembly operation and will have to spent $455 million to
upgrade safety compliance.
Many
of the families of victims of the crashes have already expressed their
unhappiness with the settlement. The judge could still reject it.
The
company could be barred from doing business with the government for a
period of time. The U. S. government is the largest single customer of
Boeing. This decision would be made by the little-known Interagency
Suspension and Debarment Committee, which is an offshoot of the
executive branch of the government.
This
could be a very, very big deal. At one time Boeing was the gold
standard of quality control. They changed when the bean counters took
over from the engineers. The corporate culture shifted, apparently not
for the good.
I seem to
remember something roughly similar happening when Harley-Davidson was
bought out by AMF many years ago. Damn near killed H-D until they got
out from under.
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