Two civil cases connected to the crash of a Boeing 737 MAX jet in Ethiopia went to trial on Monday, giving family members and representatives of those killed their first chance to speak in court after more than six years.
The two cases – the first of five that will be heard in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois – were brought by relatives of a 28-year-old woman from Kenya and a 36-year-old woman from India, both of whom were killed in the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in 2019.
Clifford Law Offices, which is representing a number of the family members, said jury selection in those cases will begin Tuesday morning.
The next two cases set to be heard involve the family members of a 38-year-old man from Yemen and Kenya and a 30-year-old man from Kenya and the U.K. The fifth case was brought by a woman from Ireland who lost her husband in the crash.
Judge Jorge Alonso is expected to hear the cases two at a time, according to Clifford Law Offices.
Another 11 civil cases connected to the crash have not yet been scheduled.
Cases Against Boeing
Flight 302 crashed shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport. All 157 people on board were killed.
Coming on the heels of the crash of Lion Air Flight 610 in Indonesia, the Ethiopian Airlines disaster triggered a worldwide grounding of the 737 MAX and an investigation in the U.S. into the type’s approval. The two crashes were later linked to the MAX’s Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, or MCAS, a flight stabilization feature that mistakenly pushed both aircraft into a nose-down position based on readings from faulty sensors.
The U.S. Department of Justice brought a criminal case against Boeing for allegedly misleading FAA investigators about the nature of the MCAS. After a change in presidential administrations, the department sought to drop the case through a nonprosecution agreement that would require Boeing to pay another $1.1 billion in penalties on top of fees already imposed and meet with the victims’ families.
A federal judge in Texas has the final say on the NPA. In September, he heard testimony from victims’ families asking him not to accept the deal.
