Indonesia Lion Air crash families still in anguish after Boeing's US$200 million fine

Families of victims of Indonesia's Lion Air flight JT 610 are once again reeling after Boeing - which manufactured the 737 MAX plane operated by the airline - agreed to pay a US$200 million fine for misleading investors about the safety of its aeroplanes.

Some family members who lost their relatives when a brand-new MAX crashed into the Java Sea on October 29, 2018 soon after take-off from Jakarta said the latest financial penalties did little to hold those responsible to account.

Neuis Marfuah, whose daughter Vivian Hasna Afifa died in the crash that killed all 189 aboard, said she "felt sorry for Boeing" because its negligence had such a fatal impact.

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The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) had issued the fine after it concluded that the company's former chief executive Dennis Muilenburg "put profits over people" and that Boeing "negligently violated the antifraud provisions" of US securities law.

Boeing settled the case by paying the fine and Muilenburg also settled the same charges in a civil case by paying a US$1 million settlement.

"I don't think anyone wanted anything bad to happen to anyone, it was just carelessness with the product, especially regarding the safety of many people. This really needs to be paid attention to so that it doesn't happen again and doesn't cause even bigger losses," Marfuah said.

She described the negligence as a "boomerang" that has returned to the company and caused significant financial and reputation damage.

Boeing initially sought to distance itself from the cause of the accident until, just five months later, Ethiopia Airlines Flight 302 crashed soon after take off from Addis Ababa.

It was later found that the flight manoeuvring systems on the planes - both brand-new 737 MAX - known as MCAS, had malfunctioned and that some pilots were unaware that such a system existed on the new planes.

Following the Lion Air crash, Boeing put out a press release that attributed the incident to pilot error and aircraft maintenance, despite the fact that the MCAS system was at this point being redesigned, the SEC said in a statement following the US$200 million settlement.

After the Ethiopia Airlines crash, Boeing also issued a press release assuring the public that its planes were safe.

Family members of crash victims have endured years of heartache as various parties tried to cash in on the tragedy.

In 2020, Marfuah and her family were recipients of the Boeing Community Investment Fund - a US$50 million fund that Boeing established "to support communities affected by Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 accidents" and "empower families who lost loved ones to support charitable organizations in affected communities".

But the Indonesian charity Marfuah partnered with, Aksi Cepat Tanggap (ACT), allegedly embezzled around US$9 million of the funds and is now under investigation by the Indonesian police. Senior members of ACT have been arrested and the accounts of the charity frozen.

Bias Ramadhan, whose mother Hasna was on board flight JT 610, said that he was dissatisfied with much of the attention in the aftermath of the crash. He felt the attention did not focus sufficiently on victims, but on financial penalties and other sanctions.

"Until now, no one has faced any criminal sanctions in America," he said. "It's simple, the parties responsible for the crash should be in jail. They shouldn't walk free just because they paid some fines."

He added that the crash resulted in documentaries by Netflix and National Geographic but there was no real accountability for those aware of the 737 MAX's safety issues.

This is not Bias' first heartache over legal woes as a result of the crash.

In July 2022, Bias and four other families of crash victims received more than US$2 million collectively after Chicago-based US law firm Edelson PC compensated them when lawyer Tom Girardi failed to transfer the full amount of a settlement with Boeing to the families.

Girardi was the head of the now-defunct, Beverly Hills-based Girardi & Keese law firm that had partnered with Edelson PC to sue Boeing in Chicago. Girardi declared bankruptcy in January 2021 and was disbarred in June this year after dozens of clients came forward claiming that they had not received the monies from settlement agreements processed by Girardi & Keese.

In a statement, a Boeing spokesperson said that the company would "never forget those lost on Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302".

It added that Boeing has made broad and deep changes across the company in response to those accidents as well as "fundamental changes that have strengthened our safety processes and oversight of safety issues, and have enhanced our culture of safety, quality, and transparency".

The statement did, however, stop short of taking full responsibility for the crashes.

"The settlement specifies that Boeing does not admit or deny the findings in the SEC's statement of facts, which concern company statements made in late 2018 and early 2019," it said.

"Today's settlement is part of the company's broader effort to responsibly resolve outstanding legal matters related to the 737 MAX accidents in a manner that serves the best interests of our shareholders, employees, and other stakeholders."

Alvin Lie, head of the Indonesian Air Transportation Service User Association, called the statement "inelegant".

"Boeing is still refusing to admit that the MAX crashes were the result of Boeing's negligence," he said. "It is this attitude that makes the public angry and makes it harder to forgive Boeing. But the fact that they have been willing to pay, has actually implicitly admitted their negligence."

Lie also said the latest fine was the consequences of Boeing's dishonesty and lack of cooperation in the Max investigation, and added that its statement had showed a further lack of remorse.

Bias said the statement was "just what he expected" and that Boeing "only cares about its shareholders", adding that Boeing had written the statement to pander to shareholders and to make a show of following the legal process in the US without actually accepting any responsibility.

"Over 300 people died in the crashes and not a single person has faced a criminal punishment until now," Ramadhan said. "It's messed up."

This article originally appeared on the South China Morning Post (SCMP).

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