Addis Ababa, July 12, 2021 (FBC) – Families of victims of the two 737 Boeing Max crashes that killed 346 people in Indonesia in 2018 and Ethiopia in 2019 have begun to receive payments from the 500 million USD settlement agreement reached in the case against Boeing.
Ribbeck Law Chartered, which represents more than 90 clients made the announcement after at least three years of litigation.
“For most of our clients, this puts an end to the civil and criminal cases filed against Boeing after the tragic crashes of Lion Air JT610 on October 29, 2018, and Ethiopian Airlines ET302 on March 10, 2019,” Manuel von Ribbeck of Ribbeck Law Chartered said in a statement.
The Ethiopian Airlines jet headed for Nairobi, Kenya crashed shortly after take-off from Addis Ababa’s Bole International Airport, killing all 149 onboard including 32 Kenyans. At least 30 nationalities were on board.
Early last week, the US government opened a 500 million USD victim fund as part of the settlement to compensate the heirs, with part of Sh156 million hitting each of Kenyan families’ accounts Thursday and Friday.
The payment comes barely a few months after a Kenyan family of a victim of the 2019 Ethiopian Airline crash agreed to a settlement of Sh327 million to drop a court case against American aircraft maker Boeing.
The final report on the Boeing 737 MAX, released in September 2020 by a legislative committee in the United States, found “repeated and serious failures” by Boeing and identified the key factors that contributed to the Boeing 737 MAX crash, including design flaws, profit and production priorities at the expense of safety.