A BOEING shareholder last night filed a lawsuit accusing the firm's board of doing nothing to investigate the safety of the 737 Max until the fast-selling plane suffered a second deadly crash in five months.

The lawsuit, brought by the Kirby Family Partnership, said the first crash was "the biggest red flag an airline manufacturer can face".

The legal action, filed in Delaware where Boeing is incorporated alleges the directors breached their fiduciary duties to shareholders and seeks to hold them personally liable for damage caused to Boeing, which could run into the billions of dollars.

It came after Boeing received an order for 10 of its 737 Max jets, which remain grounded worldwide after the crashes that killed 346 people in total.

Turkish airline Sun Express, which already has 32 of the planes on order, put its faith in the underfire US manufacturer with an extra $1.2bn (£930m) worth of the jets, in a deal confirmed at the Dubai air show yesterday.

(c) 2019 City A.M., source Newspaper