Under the agreement, Boeing was ordered to pay a criminal penalty of $243.6 million and compensation payments to Boeing's 737 Max airline customers of $1.77 billion. Boeing was also required to establish a $500 million crash-victim beneficiaries fund to compensate the heirs, relatives and legal beneficiaries of the 346 passengers who died in the two crashes. "The tragic crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 exposed fraudulent and deceptive conduct by employees of one of the world's leading commercial airplane manufacturers," Acting Assistant Attorney General David P. Burns of the Justice Department's Criminal Division said at the time of the settlement. Under the settlement agreement, Boeing officials avoided criminal prosecution. It's not clear whether the Alaska Air incident threatens that protection.