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The trial in Chicago, where Boeing used to have its headquarters, isn’t expected to examine the company’s liability. Boeing already accepted responsibility for what happened to Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and for a similar 737 Max crash five months earlier off the coast of Indonesia, which killed 189 passengers and crew members.
More than six years after a Boeing 737 Max jetliner crashed in Ethiopia, the first civil trial stemming from the disaster that killed all 157 people on board the plane appears poised to move forward. Boeing has settled most of the dozens of wrongful death lawsuits that families of the victims filed against the aircraft maker after the March 2019 crash, but two of the remaining cases are scheduled to open before a federal court jury as soon as Tuesday afternoon. Jury selection began earlier in the day.
The trial in Chicago, where Boeing used to have its headquarters, isn’t expected to examine the company’s liability. Boeing already accepted responsibility for what happened to Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and for a similar 737 Max crash five months earlier off the coast of Indonesia, which killed 189 passengers and crew members.
Instead, an eight-person jury would be tasked with deciding how much Boeing should pay to the families of Mercy Ndivo, a 28-year-old mother originally from Kenya, and 36-year-old United Nations consultant Shikha Garg, who was from India.
The fatal crash happened minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport. Ndivo and her husband were returning from her graduation ceremony in London, where she had earned a master’s degree in accountancy. The couple are survived by their daughter, an infant at the time who is now almost 8. Ndivo’s parents sued Boeing on her behalf.
Like a number of the other passengers, Garg, a consultant for the United Nations Development Programme, was on her way to attend a U.N. environmental assembly in Nairobi, Kenya. She is survived by her husband and parents.In a statement Monday, Boeing told the families of the 346 passengers and crew members killed in both crashes that it is “deeply sorry.”
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The two cases pending before U.S. District Judge Jorge Luis Alonso originally were among a group of five that potentially could have gone to trial this week. But Alonso said Monday that only two could proceed due to the U.S. government shutdown; an out-of-court settlement in either or both still could be reached at any point, even after a jury is selected and lawyers begin presenting their evidence.