Federal prosecutors are pushing for criminal charges against Boeing, after the company failed to make key safety improvements in the years following a pair of deadly 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019. 

Boeing accepted a plea deal from the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) in 2021 to avoid criminal prosecution for the two crashes, agreeing to pay $2.5 billion and make sweeping changes to its safety standards and regulatory compliance. Then, following the blowout of a door plug aboard a Boeing 737 Max 9 in January of 2024 — as well as an ensuing probe from the Federal Aviation Administration — the DOJ ruled in May that Boeing had failed to meet the terms of its 2021 deal, exposing the company to criminal prosecution. Prosecutors recommended the new charges to the DOJ on June 24, CBS News reports.

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It's unclear what the exact charges against Boeing might be or what they would entail. The DOJ has until July 7 to make a final decision on how to move forward, although The New York Times previously reported on June 21 that a new plea deal where the court appoints a monitor to keep a closer eye on the company could be on the table. 

Boeing has also faced a string of whistleblower allegations in the months since the door plug incident. Most recently, a former quality insurance investigator for the company told a U.S. Senate panel that Boeing had lost track of hundreds of nonconforming, defective parts, many of which may have been inadvertently installed in new planes. Prior to that, another whistleblower claimed that a Boeing supplier had knowingly delivered defective 737 fuselages for years.