More than six years after A Boeing 737 Max An airliner has crashed in Ethiopia, the first civil trial stemming from the disaster that claimed the lives of all 157 people on board. The plane He seems ready to move on.
Boeing settle Most of the dozens of lawsuits are related to wrongful death Victims’ families Filed against the aircraft maker yet March 2019 plane crash, but two of the remaining cases are scheduled to go before a jury in federal court on Tuesday.
The trial in Chicago, where Boeing was headquartered, is not expected to examine the drone issue Company responsibility. Boeing indeed Accepted responsibility For what happened to Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and for a similar crash of a 737 MAX off the coast of Indonesia that killed 189 passengers and crew less than five months ago.
Instead, an eight-person jury will be tasked with determining the amount Boeing They should pay the families of Mercy Ndivhu, a 28-year-old mother from Kenya, and 36-year-old UN adviser Shekha Garg, from India.
The fatal accident occurred minutes after the plane took off from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport. Ndivu and her husband were returning from her graduation ceremony in London, where she earned a master’s degree in accounting. The couple is survived by their daughter, who was an infant at the time and is now about 8 years old. Ndivhu’s parents filed a lawsuit against Boeing on her behalf.
Like a number of other passengers, Garg, a UNDP advisor, was on her way to attend a UN environment meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. She is survived by her husband and parents.
In a statement on Monday, Boeing informed the families of the 346 passengers and crew members who were killed In both incidents He’s “so sorry.”
“We have committed in advance to fully and fairly compensate the families of those lost in accidents, and we have accepted legal liability for the accidents in these proceedings,” Boeing said, adding that it respects the rights of families to pursue their claims in court.
The two cases before U.S. District Judge Jorge Luis Alonso were originally among a group of five cases that could have been tried this week. But Alonso said Monday that only two could go ahead because of the U.S. government shutdown. An out-of-court settlement can still be reached in either or both at any time, even after the jury is seated and the attorneys have presented their evidence.
Details of previous settlements, many of which were reached before scheduled trials began, were confidential and not publicly disclosed.
Attempts to reach a pretrial settlement through mediation have failed in recent months, said Robert Clifford, a Chicago attorney whose firm represents many of the victims’ families.
“Boeing accepted full responsibility for the senseless and avoidable loss of these lives, but did not mediate in good faith to find a solution for these distressed families,” Clifford said in a statement. “We are determined to get justice for every one of them.”
From the moment the Ethiopian Airlines pilots took off in their new Boeing aircraft, they were… I ran into problems With the plane.
A device called a stick shaker began vibrating the captain’s control column, warning that the plane might stall and fall out of the sky, and for six minutes, pilots were bombarded with alarms as they tried to fly the plane.
US prosecutors later charged Boeing with conspiracy to commit fraud in connection with the two incidents, accusing the company of Deceive government regulators About A Flight control system Developed for the 737 MAX. In both incidents, the software Nasal erection Airplanes repeatedly crashed based on false readings from a single sensor.
The Department of Justice asked A federal judge in Texas to Felony charge dropped And approved an agreement between prosecutors and Boeing for that hanging. If approved, the deal would allow Boeing to avoid prosecution in exchange for paying or investing another $1.1 billion in fines, compensation to victims’ families, and internal safety and quality measures.