The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has charged The Boeing Company and its former CEO, Dennis A. Muilenburg, with making “materially misleading public statements” following the fatal crashes of Boeing MAX airplanes in 2018 and 2019. The crashes involved Boeing’s 737 MAX airplane and a flight control function called the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS). According to the SEC’s orders, after the first crash, Boeing and Muilenburg knew that MCAS posed an ongoing airplane safety issue, but nevertheless assured the public that the 737 MAX airplane was “as safe as any airplane that has ever flown the skies.” Later,