Boeing escapes first US civil lawsuit over Ethiopian Airlines crash

American giant Boeing reached a last-minute settlement on Monday with the beneficiaries of a victim of the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX 8 in March 2019, thereby avoiding a federal civil trial in the United States.

Three sources close to the case told AFP that an out-of-court settlement had been reached in the afternoon, without providing further details.

A trial was due to begin Tuesday morning before a jury in Chicago, in the northern United States. He was originally supposed to examine six complaints, but now all of them have resulted in an agreement, according to information obtained in recent days.

A judicial source specified that the hearing would be held on Tuesday morning, if only to inform federal judge Jorge Alonso of these amicable transactions. It is up to the magistrate to approve or reject these agreements.

According to a source close to the case, the complaint that was settled on Monday concerned Manisha Nukavarapu. It had been filed on April 17, 2019, among the first.

The trial was simply intended to “determine the amount of compensation. No evidence on Boeing's liability (was to) be presented,” explained a judicial source, explaining that witnesses (family, friends, colleagues, etc.) were to come and talk about the victim and the impact of her disappearance on their lives.

Reached by AFP, neither the lawyers representing her relatives nor Boeing commented.

A Boeing 737 MAX 8, in Samoa, on October 26, 2024 © AFP – William WEST

The complaint, obtained by AFP, specifies that Manisha Nukavarapu, an Indian national, was in her second year of a general medicine internship at East Tennessee State University. She planned to become an endocrinologist.

Single and childless, she had boarded a Boeing 737 MAX 8 on Ethiopian Airlines flight ET302 from Addis Ababa to Nairobi on March 10, 2019, to visit her sister in the Kenyan capital who had just given birth, according to the document.

But the plane, delivered in October 2018, crashed southeast of the Ethiopian capital six minutes after takeoff.

Several previously scheduled trials were canceled earlier due to agreements before the start of the proceedings, according to a court document dating from June 2023.

– Negligence –

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It specifies that civil complaints were filed by relatives of 155 victims between April 2019 and March 2021, for wrongful death and negligence, among other things.

Relatives of victims of the March 2019 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 in Washington, DC, on June 18, 2024 © GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA – Andrew Harnik

As of October 22, there were “thirty open complaints concerning 29 deceased persons,” another source close to the case said.

The complaints have been divided into several groups, each with a trial date unless an agreement is finalized by then, several judicial sources explained. The next one is scheduled for April 7, 2025.

Boeing “has publicly and in civil lawsuits accepted responsibility for the MAX crashes because the design of the MCAS (anti-stall software) contributed to those events,” a lawyer for the planemaker noted at a hearing in October.

This software is implicated in the Ethiopian accident but also in that of a 737 MAX 8 of the Indonesian company Lion Air – delivered in July 2018 – which crashed into the sea on October 29, 2018 about ten minutes after takeoff from Jakarta, killing 189 people.

Commercial flights of this model began in May 2017. The entire 737 MAX family was grounded for more than twenty months after these crashes.

– Criminal aspect –

According to the manufacturer, more than 90% of the civil complaints related to the two accidents have been resolved.

Debris from the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX 8 that crashed shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa, March 13, 2019 © AFP – TONY KARUMBA

Boeing has paid “several billion dollars,” in addition to the sums awarded during a criminal proceeding before a federal court in Texas, its lawyer.

Several dozen civil complaints have also been filed in the United States regarding the Lion Air crash. Only one is still open, according to a judicial update published Friday.

In the criminal part, Boeing signed a so-called deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) in January 2021.

It was called into question after a series of quality problems with its production, which culminated in an in-flight incident in January 2024 on an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX 9, which caused a few minor injuries.

A plea agreement with the Justice Department was filed on July 24 in federal court in Fort Worth. As of November 11, the Texas judge had still not rendered his decision on approval or rejection.

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