Boeing will be offered a plea deal by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) for impending fraud charges over a pair of fatal 737 Max crashes in 2018 and 2019.

Lawyers for the crash victims' families told The New York Times that details of the plea deal were shared by the DOJ on June 30. In exchange for pleading guilty to fraud, Boeing would be fined $244 million, promise to make safety improvements, be placed under a three-year probationary period, and have their board agree to a face-to-face meeting with families. 

Boeing had accepted a previous plea deal from the DOJ in 2021. At the time, it allowed the planemaker to avoid criminal prosecution for the two crashes in exchange for a $2.5 billion fine and a guarantee that they would make sweeping changes to their safety standards and regulatory compliance. The DOJ ruled in May that Boeing had violated the terms of that deal, after it was revealed that four bolts were missing from a door plug that blew out aboard a 737 Max 9 in January. 

With Boeing likely to avoid a criminal trial over the 2018 and 2019 crashes for a second time, Paul Cassell — one of the attorneys representing the victim families — described the new agreement as a "sweetheart plea deal."

“The families will strenuously object to this plea deal,” Cassell said in a written statement. “The memory of 346 innocents killed by Boeing demands more justice than this.”

This comes on the back of Boeing agreeing to buy troubled supplier Spirit Aerosystems for $4.7 billion. Spirit makes parts for a handful of Boeing planes, which are then shipped to Boeing's factory in Renton, Washington. An investigation from the National Transportation Safety Board into the door plug incident found that although the bolts were removed at Boeing's factory, the plane had initially been sent there because of issues with five rivets installed by Spirit. A former Spirit quality manager also told CBS News in May that the supplier had knowingly delivered defective 737 fuselages to Boeing for years.