US Jury Finds Boeing not Guilty in 737 MAX Grounding Lawsuit

A US jury found Friday that aerospace giant Boeing was not liable for lost revenue in a lawsuit involving its 737 MAX jets, which were grounded for 20 months following two deadly crashes in 2018 and 2019.

Polish airline LOT had accused Boeing of fraud and sued for $250 million in lost income after the company's alleged "purposeful and negligent false representations and omissions concerning the 737 MAX aircraft," the initial complaint said.

The jury for the trial in a Seattle federal courthouse decided this was not the case, however, according to court documents reviewed by AFP.

"We are gratified by the jury's verdict in our favor," a Boeing spokesperson said in a statement to AFP.

The case stemmed from claims by LOT that Boeing had to compensate it for lost business due to the lengthy MAX grounding in the aftermath of Lion Air's 2018 crash and Ethiopian Airlines' 2019 crash that claimed a joint total 346 lives.

After the crashes, Boeing acknowledged that a flawed flight-stabilizing program known as the MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System) contributed to the disasters.

The case from the airline, whose full company name is Polskie Linie Lotnicze LOT S.A., is the first MAX-related challenge to Boeing from a carrier to go to trial.