NEW YORK/WASHINGTON April 24 (Reuters) - Families of the

victims of two fatal Boeing 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019

will press U.S. Justice Department officials Wednesday to

criminally prosecute the planemaker after a January in-flight

blowout exposed continuing safety and quality issues.

Relatives and their lawyers are expected to argue that

Boeing ( BA ) violated a 2021 deal with prosecutors to overhaul

its compliance program following the crashes, which killed 346

people. Federal prosecutors agreed to ask a judge to dismiss a

criminal charge against Boeing ( BA ) so long as it complied with the

deal's terms over a three-year period.

But a panel blew off a new Boeing 737 MAX 9 jet during a

Jan. 5 Alaska Airlines flight, just two days before the

2021 agreement expired. Justice Department officials are now

weighing that incident as part of a broader probe into whether

Boeing ( BA ) violated the deal, known as a deferred prosecution

agreement, or DPA, two people familiar with the matter told

Reuters.

"What we're saying to DOJ is, throw out the DPA," said Nadia

Milleron, whose daughter, Samya Stumo, died while traveling

aboard the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 that crashed in

March 2019. "We want them to think to themselves: This is too

much. There has to be accountability."

Family members argue an independent monitor is needed to

ensure Boeing's ( BA ) compliance with the agreement. Boeing's ( BA ) deal had

no such requirement, unlike some past agreements with other

companies.

"If there was an outside monitor, the Alaska situation would

not have happened," Milleron said.

Boeing ( BA ) and the Justice Department declined to comment.

In January 2021, Boeing ( BA ) agreed to pay $2.5 billion to

resolve a criminal investigation into the company's conduct

surrounding the crashes. The U.S. planemaker agreed to

compensate victims' relatives and overhaul its compliance

practices as part of the deal with prosecutors.

In an earlier April meeting with family members' lawyers,

Justice Department officials said they were looking at

circumstances outlined in the 2021 deal that could put Boeing ( BA ) in

breach of the agreement, such as the company committing a felony

or misleading U.S. officials, one of the people familiar with

the matter said.

The agreement gives U.S. officials six months from the

deal's Jan. 7 expiration to decide whether to prosecute Boeing ( BA )

on a charge that the company conspired to defraud the Federal

Aviation Administration or pursue other alternatives to

dismissing the case.

Officials plan to do so within that time frame while

investigations into the Jan. 5 in-flight blowout continue, which

could inform their decision, one of the people said. The people

spoke on condition of anonymity.

Prosecutors are expected to lean heavily on findings from

the FAA's investigations, one of the people previously told

Reuters.

The FAA, for instance, is investigating a Boeing ( BA ) engineer's

claims that the company dismissed safety and quality concerns in

the production of the planemaker's 787 and 777 jets. In a

congressional hearing last week, the engineer testified that

Boeing ( BA ) sidelined him when he raised concerns. Reuters has not

independently verified his claims, which Boeing ( BA ) has disputed.