Boeing settles lawsuit filed by Canadian man whose family died in 2019 Ethiopia plane crash
Just as a trial was set to begin this week in Chicago, Boeing agreed to a settlement with a Canadian man who lost six family members in a 737 Max 8 plane crash in Ethiopia in 2019.
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed after takeoff from Addis Ababa in March 2019, killing all 157 people on board.
Manant Vaidya, of Toronto, lost his parents and sister, along with three in-laws in the crash.
Opening statements had been set to begin on Wednesday in a trial over the lawsuit Vaidya had filed against Boeing before the company agreed to a settlement in the case late Tuesday, according to Vaidya's attorneys.
Terms of the settlement were confidential.
"Boeing accepted full responsibility for the senseless and preventable loss of these innocent lives, and this corporate giant has now been held accountable to this family, especially to this good man who lost his dear mom, dad, and sister," attorney Robert Clifford said in a statement.
The Ethiopian Airlines crash happened less than five months after another 737 Max 8 jet crashed, when a Lion Air flight plunged into the sea off Indonesia in 2018. All 346 people on board the two planes died in the crashes.
After those incidents, Boeing was forced to ground all of its 737 Max planes for nearly two years to install required system upgrades.
The company had faced a criminal fraud charge connected to the crashes, but federal prosecutors agreed to drop the case after Boeing agreed to pay more than $1.1 billion in fines, and an additional $445 million in compensation for the crash victims' families. The deal also required Boeing to strengthen internal safety and quality measures.
The deal allowed Boeing to avoid criminal prosecution for allegedly misleading U.S. regulators about the 737 Max jetliner before the two crashes.