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STORY: Boeing has finalized a guilty plea to criminal fraud conspiracy charges in connection with its 737 MAX jets.

That’s according to a court filing on Wednesday.

The U.S. Justice Department says the planemaker allowed potentially risky work to proceed at its factories, and did not keep proper records.

The company will now pay a fine of $243.6 million as part of the deal.

Boeing confirmed on Wednesday that it had filed a plea agreement, and promised to work transparently with regulators.

It all flows from the two fatal MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.

Boeing subsequently agreed to a deal to defer prosecution over charges it concealed problems with software implicated in the crashes.

Then in January this year it faced fresh scrutiny after a midair blowout on another MAX jet, ultimately leading the Justice Department to conclude it had violated the deferred prosecution deal.

A separate criminal probe into the blowout incident is ongoing.

The problems aren’t confined to the MAX, however.

Officials also identified issues with the manufacturing and record keeping regarding its bigger 787 airliners.

As part of the plea deal, Boeing will submit to independent monitoring, and spend at least $455 million over the next three years to boost safety and compliance programs.

Families of those killed in the MAX crashes will have a week to file objections.