Irene King: Aviation Expert on Boeing pleading guilty to defrauding regulators

An aviation expert says Boeing's management would be in jail if it were subject to New Zealand law.  

The company's agreed to a guilty plea around defrauding American regulators.  

It could pay up to half-a-billion US dollars to avoid prosecution.  

The lawsuit relates to two Boeing 737 Max jets that crashed in Indonesia in 2018 —and Ethiopia the year later— leaving hundreds dead. 

Irene King told Ryan Bridge that prosecution is just one part of the equation.  

She doesn't think it does enough to improve the company's performance or safety. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Boeing have have pleaded, I should say, guilty to criminal
fraud after the company violated a deal that was meant
to reform it following two fatal seven three seven Max
crashes that killed three hundred and forty six passengers in
twenty eighteen and twenty nineteen. You'll remember those. The company
will have to pay nearly four hundred million New Zealand dollars.

(00:22):
The families of the victims have criticized the decision, calling
it a sweetheart deal that would allow Boeing to avoid
responsibility for the deaths. Mark Lindquist is the lawyer for
some of those families. Fo one hundred and forty six
people died in those two crashes. Therefore, a pleader manslaughter
would be more fitted. Joining me this morning is the

(00:45):
aviation commentator Irene king Iron. Good morning. What is your
reaction to this?

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Look, it's a very substantial Oh fine, I think it's
right the actual maximum. But really, you know, you can
find these companies. But at the end of the day,
what we're more interested in is does it promote or

(01:12):
does it improve the performance in aviation safety of the company,
And I don't think it goes anywhere near.

Speaker 1 (01:20):
That Well, it clearly doesn't, does it, because this follows
the twenty twenty one judgment, which where they agreed to
again in lieu of going to court, pay a fine,
pay a penalty, and then they were supposed to have this,
you know, monitoring for three years. They've now breached that
monitoring and here we are with another fine. I mean,
why aren't they going after these guys in court?

Speaker 2 (01:43):
Well, I think one of the problems is the monitoring
is the failure, and the monitoring is by the FAA
is not actually bowing Now. I'm not excusing Boeing because
I think, you know, there are some big performance issues
in Boweling, but you know, can the federal administration eshuygoers

(02:07):
for itself because the are the ones that failed with
the monitoring, And the answer very clearly is no. So
the fine process in the United States is very significantly
different from here. Now, if we put it into the
New Zealand context, the management of this company would be

(02:30):
in jail now, there's no question about that under our
health and safety legislation. But you know, the FAA and
the federal system is very different, and this is about
a failure of a federal system. And so you know,
it's a bit pointless, really.

Speaker 1 (02:50):
I do we not inherit the safety features of aircraft
that are developed in the United States? You know, should
we be worried about right?

Speaker 2 (03:00):
You know? Absolutely? And the question should we be worried
about the performance of Boeing? I think, Look, there's there's
some big question marks, but it comes back to the
leadership and who they put in there as the chief
executive and how they lead and how they think about safety. Now,

(03:21):
as I say in New Zealand, here, if this company
was located here, on the one hand, we have accs,
so you can't flee them. But on the other hand,
we have health and safety and these people would be
subject to an enormous fine and they would end up
in jail. There is no question about that.

Speaker 1 (03:40):
Irene King, thank you very much every time this morning
aviation commentator Irene King's saying that Boeing were they to
be practicing here in the way that they were in
the United States. For more from News Talks' b listen
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