First civil trial over 737 Max crash in Ethiopia begins, as Boeing settles three more lawsuits

CHICAGO (AP) – The first civil trial over a Boeing 737 Max crash in Ethiopia more than six years ago opened Wednesday before a federal court jury that was asked to decide how much the American aerospace company must pay to the family of one of the 157 victims.

The eight-person jury in Chicago, where Boeing used to have its headquarters, had been expected to set financial compensation amounts for the families of two women who were among the people who died when Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 plunged to the ground in March 2019. But moments before jurors arrived in the courtroom for opening statements, U.S. District Judge Jorge Luis Alonso was notified that one of the cases had been settled out of court.

“We are grateful,” Fredrick Musau Ndivo, the father of Mercy Ndivo, a 28-year-old mother originally from Kenya, told the judge after his family reached a settlement with Boeing. “We wish you the best and wish the legal system of America to hold up the rights and justice for the people for all walks of life.”

The family’s attorney, Robert Clifford, who is representing many of the victims’ relatives, told the judge that two more pending cases also were settled recently. Boeing negotiated pre-trial settlements in most of the dozens of wrongful death lawsuits that were filed against the aircraft maker after the crash.

Details of the settlements were confidential and not disclosed. Lawyers say about a dozen more lawsuits remain unresolved.

The trial that proceeded Wednesday centered on the death of Shikha Garg, a United Nations consultant. 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.

Shanin Specter, the family’s lawyer, painted a picture of a young and accomplished woman. A citizen of India, Garg was also a newlywed.

“She was a beautiful person inside and out,” the lawyer said in his opening statement.

Specter turned on a screen that showed a photo of a smiling Garg as a bride just months before she boarded the deadly Ethiopian Airlines flight, dressed in a sari and holding flower garlands in line with Indian tradition. The then-new Boeing Max crashed minutes after taking off from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport.

Specter called Garg’s death “senseless” and “preventable” and showed jurors a March 10, 2019, picture of a large hole left in the ground after the plane nosedived.

“It hit the ground with such force, that it made this enormous crater in the ground,” he said.

Specter said jurors would feel sympathy for the victim’s family and Boeing at times, but that the case was not about sympathy.

The jury in Chicago won’t have to weigh the aircraft maker’s liability in the crash because Boeing has already accepted responsibility for it and for a similar 737 Max disaster in Indonesia less than five months earlier.

“Money is an entirely inadequate substitute for the life of Shikha Garg,” Specter said.

Boeing said in a statement ahead of the trial that it remained “deeply sorry” and has pledged to fully compensate families.

From nearly the moment pilots flying for Ethiopian Airlines took off in their new Boeing jetliner, they encountered problems with the plane.

A device called a stick shaker began vibrating the captain’s control column, warning that the plane might stall and fall from the sky. For six minutes, the pilots were bombarded by alarms as they fought to fly the plane before entering a final nosedive at nearly 700 miles per hour.

The trial arrives after years of litigation overshadowed by the aerospace giant’s broader legal troubles.

U.S. prosecutors later charged Boeing with conspiracy to commit fraud in connection with both crashes, accusing the company of deceiving government regulators about a flight-control system it developed for the 737 Max. In both crashes, the software had pitched the nose of the planes down repeatedly based on faulty readings from a single sensor.

The Justice Department has asked a federal judge in Texas to dismiss the felony charge and approve its pending agreement with Boeing. If the judge signs off, Boeing would avoid prosecution by paying or investing an additional $1.1 billion toward fines, compensation for victims’ families, and internal safety and quality improvements.

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Yamat reported from Las Vegas.