Boeing

Both accidents were down to flaws in the flight control systems on the 737 Max aircraft which caused nosedives.

Boeing was found to have failed to disclose information about the system but avoided a trial by agreeing to pay $2.5bn (£1.8bn) in fines and compensation.

Relatives of those who died are trying to reopen the settlement.

It means that for the first time, the company will be formally charged in court in relation to the two crashes, and will have to plead guilty or not guilty.

Two fatal 737 Max crashes killed 346 people within five months, in 2018 and 2019; one in Indonesia and the other in Ethiopia.

Following the crashes Boeing's best selling plane was grounded for 20 months, then returned to service after the company made significant software and training improvements.

The proposed agreement was filed to a Delaware court on Friday and confirmed by Boeing.

It blames a "culture of concealment" at Boeing, but says the regulatory system was also "fundamentally flawed".

Boeing said it had "learned many hard lessons" from the accidents.

But families of the victims accused the company and the regulator of continuing to hide information.

The US report is highly critical of both Boeing and the regulator, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The firm said it had inadvertently made an alarm feature optional instead of standard, but insisted that this did not jeopardise flight safety.

All 737 Max planes were grounded in March after an Ethiopian Airlines flight crashed, killing 157 people.

Five months earlier, 189 people were killed in a Lion Air crash.

The worldwide fleet of 737 Max planes totalled 387 aircraft at the time of the grounding.

But it's still not certain when the planes, that were grounded worldwide this month, will be allowed to fly.

Investigators have not yet determined the cause of the accidents.

As part of the upgrade, Boeing will install as a standard a warning system, which was previously an optional safety feature.

Neither of the planes, operated by Lion Air in Indonesia and Ethiopian Airlines, that were involved in the fatal crashes, carried the alert systems, designed to warn pilots when sensors produce contradictory readings.