Wednesday 10 April 2019 12:14 pm | Updated: Monday 03 June 2019 1:34 am

Shareholders sue Boeing for ‘putting profit ahead of safety’ after 737 Max crashes

Boeing’s legal troubles grew yesterday as a lawsuit accused the plane manufacturer of defrauding shareholders by allegedly hiding the safety issues in its 737 Max plane that led to two fatal crashes.

A proposed class action was filed in a Chicago federal court, and seeks damages for alleged securities fraud after the firm’s market value fell $34bn (£26bn) in the two weeks after an Ethiopian Airlines jet went down on 10 March.

The crash killed all 157 people on board, and followed a similar crash in Indonesia five months earlier that killed all 187 people on board.

Boeing chief executive Dennis Muilenburg and finance chief Gregory Smith were named as defendants in the filing.

The incident has already raised concerns the plane maker rushed the 737 Max, its best-selling model designed to be a workhorse of the aviation industry for years to come, out to market.

According to the complaint, Boeing “effectively put profitability and growth ahead of airplane safety and honesty” by rushing the 737 Max to market to compete with Airbus SE, while leaving out “extra” or “optional” features designed to prevent the Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air crashes.

It also claimed Boeing statements about its growth prospects and the 737 Max were undermined by an alleged conflict of interest, relating to the fact the US aviation regulator trusts the firm to certify the plane as safe to fly itself.

The plaintiff, Richard Seeks, said he bought 300 Boeing shares in early March, selling them at a loss in the last two weeks.

Yesterday Boeing gave the first indication of how hard its bottom line has been hit by the fallout, announcing that total commercial plane deliveries fell 19 per cent year-on-year in the first quarter, down from 184 units in the first three months of last year to 149 this time around.