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

The SEC concluded Boeing’s former CEO had ‘put profits over people’ and the company ‘negligently violated antifraud provisions’

This adds to a long list of heartaches for many Lion Air crash victims’ families, who have fought for years for greater accountability by the manufacturer

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Published: 2:00pm, 2 Oct 2022Updated: 2:04pm, 2 Oct 2022

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.

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.