Monday, April 7, 2025 - Boeing is set to face a jury trial beginning Monday in Chicago over the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash involving a 737 MAX aircraft, marking the first civil case related to the disaster to reach court. The trial, expected to span two weeks, initially involved two plaintiffs who lost family members in the crash. However, one of the complaints was resolved in an out-of-court settlement late Sunday, according to a judicial source, continuing the pattern of private resolutions that has characterized most of the litigation related to the tragedy.
The trial is scheduled to begin with jury selection, though
further settlements could still occur during proceedings. “We have had some
ongoing discussion that may continue throughout the day and the ensuing days,”
said Robert Clifford, an attorney representing several families of crash
victims, during a pre-trial hearing on Wednesday. Deals could still be reached
even after the trial starts.
The March 10, 2019 crash occurred just six minutes after the
aircraft took off from Addis Ababa en route to Nairobi, killing all 157 people
on board. In the aftermath, relatives of 155 victims filed lawsuits against
Boeing between April 2019 and March 2021, citing wrongful death, negligence,
and other charges. As of late March, 18 cases remained open. Sunday’s
settlement reduced that number by three, judicial sources confirmed.
This week’s proceedings will focus solely on the case of
Canadian victim Darcy Belanger, a 46-year-old Colorado resident and founding
member of the Parvati Foundation. Belanger was on his way to a United Nations
environmental conference in Nairobi at the time of the crash.
US District Judge Jorge Alonso has organized the remaining
lawsuits into groups of five or six, stipulating that a trial will not proceed
if all cases in a group are settled. A similar trial scheduled for November was
called off after Boeing reached a last-minute agreement with the family of a
female victim.
The 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash followed a similar
accident involving a Lion Air 737 MAX aircraft in Indonesia in October 2018,
which killed all 189 people on board. Boeing also faced multiple lawsuits from
Lion Air victims’ families, with just one case pending as of the end of March.
While the financial terms of Boeing’s civil settlements
remain confidential, the company has acknowledged its role in the MAX crashes.
“The US manufacturer has accepted responsibility for the MAX crashes publicly
and in civil litigation because the design of the MCAS… contributed to these
events,” a Boeing attorney stated during a hearing in October.
The MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System),
which was found to have played a key role in both crashes, triggered widespread
criticism and prompted intense regulatory and political scrutiny. The incidents
led to high-profile congressional hearings, leadership changes at Boeing, and
the global grounding of the 737 MAX fleet for over 20 months. Boeing later
revised the MCAS software, and the aircraft was cleared to resume flights in
November 2020 after approval from the Federal Aviation Administration.
Boeing’s legal troubles are far from over. In addition to
the civil litigation in Chicago, the company is also facing a potential
criminal trial in Texas scheduled for June. That trial stems from a 2021
deferred prosecution agreement between Boeing and the US Justice Department,
which was related to the two MAX crashes. In May 2024, federal prosecutors
accused Boeing of violating the terms of that agreement, following a January
2024 incident in which an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX made an emergency landing due
to a mid-air panel failure. US District Judge Reed O’Connor subsequently
ordered a jury trial to begin on June 23 after rejecting a proposed settlement
between Boeing and the Justice Department.
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