Boeing faces new civil trial over 2019 Ethiopian crash

1. Boeing is set to face a jury trial beginning Monday in Chicago over the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash involving a 737 MAX aircraft, marking the first civil case related to the disaster to reach court. The trial, expected to span two weeks, initially involved two plaintiffs who lost family members in the crash. However, one of the complaints was resolved in an out-of-court settlement late Sunday, according to a judicial source, continuing the pattern of private resolutions that has characterized most of the litigation related to the tragedy.

The trial is scheduled to begin with jury selection, though further settlements could still occur during proceedings. “We have had some ongoing discussion that may continue throughout the day and the ensuing days,” said Robert Clifford, an attorney representing several families of crash victims, during a pre-trial hearing on Wednesday. Deals could still be reached even after the trial starts.

The March 10, 2019 crash occurred just six minutes after the aircraft took off from Addis Ababa en route to Nairobi, killing all 157 people on board. In the aftermath, relatives of 155 victims filed lawsuits against Boeing between April 2019 and March 2021, citing wrongful death, negligence, and other charges. As of late March, 18 cases remained open. Sunday’s settlement reduced that number by three, judicial sources confirmed.

This week’s proceedings will focus solely on the case of Canadian victim Darcy Belanger, a 46-year-old Colorado resident and founding member of the Parvati Foundation. Belanger was on his way to a United Nations environmental conference in Nairobi at the time of the crash.

US District Judge Jorge Alonso has organized the remaining lawsuits into groups of five or six, stipulating that a trial will not proceed if all cases in a group are settled. A similar trial scheduled for November was called off after Boeing reached a last-minute agreement with the family of a female victim.

The 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash followed a similar accident involving a Lion Air 737 MAX aircraft in Indonesia in October 2018, which killed all 189 people on board. Boeing also faced multiple lawsuits from Lion Air victims’ families, with just one case pending as of the end of March.

While the financial terms of Boeing’s civil settlements remain confidential, the company has acknowledged its role in the MAX crashes. “The US manufacturer has accepted responsibility for the MAX crashes publicly and in civil litigation because the design of the MCAS… contributed to these events,” a Boeing attorney stated during a hearing in October.

The MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), which was found to have played a key role in both crashes, triggered widespread criticism and prompted intense regulatory and political scrutiny. The incidents led to high-profile congressional hearings, leadership changes at Boeing, and the global grounding of the 737 MAX fleet for over 20 months. Boeing later revised the MCAS software, and the aircraft was cleared to resume flights in November 2020 after approval from the Federal Aviation Administration.

Boeing’s legal troubles are far from over. In addition to the civil litigation in Chicago, the company is also facing a potential criminal trial in Texas scheduled for June. That trial stems from a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement between Boeing and the US Justice Department, which was related to the two MAX crashes. In May 2024, federal prosecutors accused Boeing of violating the terms of that agreement, following a January 2024 incident in which an Alaska Airlines 737 MAX made an emergency landing due to a mid-air panel failure. US District Judge Reed O’Connor subsequently ordered a jury trial to begin on June 23 after rejecting a proposed settlement between Boeing and the Justice Department.