Boeing Avoids First Trial and Reaches Settlement With Canadian Man Who Lost Family in 737 MAX Crash
Paul Njoroge, who lost his wife and three children in the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines tragedy, has struck a settlement with Boeing.
Paul Njoroge, a Toronto resident who lost his wife, three children, and mother-in-law in the March 2019 Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 tragedy, and his attorney stated Friday that Boeing had negotiated a settlement with him.
The agreement’s terms were not revealed. In the first court case involving the two deadly Boeing 737 MAX crashes that claimed 346 lives, Njoroge, 41, was scheduled to put the US planemaker on trial Monday.
Njoroge’s wife Carolyne, his children Ryan (6), Kellie (4), nine-month-old Rubi, and his mother-in-law were among the 157 persons killed in the tragedy, which resulted in the worldwide grounding of Boeing’s best-selling airplane for 20 months.
After reaching a settlement with the relatives of two additional crash victims in April, Boeing also avoided going to trial.
Regarding the most recent settlement, the business has refrained from commenting. It has, however, paid up billions of dollars through litigation, regulatory settlements, and a deferred prosecution agreement, settling over 90% of civil charges related to the 2018 Lion Air and 2019 Ethiopian Airlines tragedies.
In a separate trial scheduled for November 3, Njoroge’s lawyer, Robert Clifford, is also defending the relatives of six other victims.
Boeing and the US Department of Justice requested a judge’s approval earlier this month for a plea deal that would save the firm from prosecution. In the agreement, Boeing would enter a guilty plea to regulator fraud without facing independent scrutiny or being classified as a convicted criminal. Families of the crash victims have strongly opposed the proposal.
The charge comes after Boeing acknowledged that it had misled US authorities about the flight control software connected to both incidents, the Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS).
