Boeing will begin its jury trial in Chicago on Monday in a 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash involving a 737 Max aircraft, marking the first civil case related to the disaster. The trial is expected to span two weeks and initially involves two plaintiffs who lost their family members in the crash. However, one of the complaints was settled in an outside settlement late Sunday, continuing the private resolution model of most lawsuits related to the tragedy, according to judicial sources.
The trial plan begins with the selection of a jury, although further settlements may occur during the litigation process. “We have some ongoing discussions that may last throughout the day and the days that follow,” Robert Clifford, the attorney representing the families of several crash victims, said at a pretrial hearing Wednesday. Even after the trial begins, a deal can still be concluded.
The crash on March 10, 2019 occurred six minutes after the plane was travelling to Nairobi from Addis Ababa, killing all 157 people on board. Afterwards, between April 2019 and March 2021, relatives of 155 victims filed lawsuits against Boeing on the grounds of false death, negligence and other charges. As of late March, 18 cases remained open. Judicial sources confirmed that Sunday’s settlement was reduced by three.
This week’s lawsuit will focus only on Canadian victim Darcy Belanger, a 46-year-old Colorado resident and founding member of the Parvati Foundation. Belanger was holding a United Nations Environment Conference in Nairobi when the crash occurred.
U.S. District Court Jorge Alonso has organized the remaining lawsuits into groups of five to six, stating that if all cases in a group are resolved, there will be no trial. A similar trial, scheduled for November, was also cancelled after Boeing reached a last-minute agreement with the family of a female victim.
A similar accident occurred in the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash involving a Lion Airlines 737 Max aircraft in Indonesia in October 2018, resulting in all 189 people on board. Boeing also faces multiple lawsuits from families of Lion Airlines victims, with only one case as of the end of March.
Although the financial terms of Boeing’s civil settlement remain confidential, the company acknowledged its role in the Max crash. “The U.S. manufacturer is responsible for the public crash and civil litigation of Max because the design of MCAS … contributed to these events,” a Boeing attorney said in an October hearing.
MCAS (Mobile Feature Extension System) played a key role in both collapses, triggering widespread criticism and triggering strict regulatory and political scrutiny. These events led to high-profile congressional hearings, Boeing’s leadership changes and the global foundation of the 737 Max Fleet for more than 20 months. Boeing then revised the MCAS software and cleared the plane to resume flights in November 2020 after approval by the Federal Aviation Administration.
Boeing’s legal troubles are not over yet. In addition to a civil lawsuit in Chicago, the company faces a potential criminal trial in Texas scheduled for June. The test stems from a 2021 extension of prosecution agreement between Boeing and the U.S. Department of Justice, which is related to the two largest crashes. In May 2024, federal prosecutors accused Boeing of violating the terms of the agreement after an incident in January 20024 caused an emergency landing by Alaska Airlines 737 MAX MAX due to a failure of the air board. U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor then ordered a jury trial to begin on June 23, denying a proposed settlement between Boeing and the Justice Department.
