Boeing faces first civil lawsuit over 2019 MAX crash, Boeing, Ethiopian Airlines, crash, lawsuit, lawsuit, 737 MAX, MCAS, aviation, safety, latest news

The trial, scheduled for federal court in Chicago, originally included six plaintiffs, but “all but one” have been settled, a person close to the lawsuit told AFP this week.

Unless an agreement is reached, the case will be Boeing’s first civil lawsuit over the MAX crashes.

A settlement, which requires court approval, is still possible even after the proceedings have begun.

But the source told AFP the case is expected to go to trial, citing an opinion from a second legal source.

The plaintiffs in the case are relatives of Indian-born Manisha Nukavarapu, who was in her second year of medical school and specialized in endocrinology at East Tennessee State University.

Nukavarapu, who was single and had no children, boarded a 737 MAX on a Nairobi-bound flight in Addis Ababa on March 10, 2019, to visit her sister who had just given birth, according to a complaint.

But the plane, which was delivered in November 2018, crashed just six minutes after takeoff, killing everyone on board.

Relatives of 155 victims were deposed by the courts in wrongful death cases due to negligence between April 2019 and March 2021, according to legal documents.

“As of today, there are 30 cases pending on behalf of 29 deceased persons,” a third legal source told AFP on October 22.

The cases have been divided into groups, with the next trial scheduled for April 2025 unless all cases are resolved.

Boeing has “accepted responsibility for the MAX crashes publicly and in civil lawsuits because the design of the MCAS … contributed to these events,” a Boeing lawyer said during an Oct. 11 court hearing.

The MCAS was a flight stabilization system that malfunctioned on both Syrian Airlines and the October 2018 Lion Air crash in Indonesia, which killed 189 people.

The MAX entered commercial service in May 2017. The global fleet was grounded for twenty months after the Syrian Airlines crash.

According to Boeing, more than 90 percent of the cases arising from the crashes have been resolved. The company did not disclose the total financial impact of these matters.

“Boeing has paid billions of dollars to the crash families and their attorneys in connection with civil lawsuits,” Boeing’s attorney said at the Oct. 11 hearing, which took place in Texas and involved a Justice Department criminal case over the MAX.

Dozens of plaintiffs have also been subpoenaed in civil lawsuits over the Lion Air crash, including 46 represented by Seattle law firm Herrmann.

The Texas lawsuit involves a new deferred prosecution agreement with the Justice Department after DOJ concluded that Boeing had violated a $2.5 billion criminal settlement from January 2021 over fraud allegations related to the MAX certification.

In July, Boeing agreed to plead guilty to fraud as part of the latest DPA, but the agreement must still be accepted by a federal judge.