Civil trial over payouts to families of Ethiopia Boeing crash victims to proceed

The first civil trial related to the crash of a Boeing airplane in Ethiopia was set to proceed in the United States on Wednesday, six years after the disaster killed all 157 people on board.

Boeing has settled most of the dozens of wrongful death lawsuits that families of the victims filed against the company, but a federal court jury was selected on Tuesday in two of the remaining cases.

Lawyers for the families and the US aircraft maker were scheduled to give their opening statements on Wednesday in a Chicago court.

The trial will not examine the company’s liability, as Boeing has already accepted responsibility for what happened to Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in 2019, and for a similar 737 Max crash five months earlier off the Indonesian coast that killed 189 passengers and crew.

Instead, the eight-person jury is tasked with deciding how much Boeing should pay to the families of Mercy Ndivo, a 28-year-old mother originally from Kenya, and 36-year-old United Nations consultant Shikha Garg, who was from India.

Both women were supposed to fly from Addis Ababa to Nairobi onboard a Boeing 737 Max jetliner on 10 March 2019, but the plane crashed just minutes after take-off. There were no survivors.

In a statement Monday, Boeing told the families of the 346 passengers and crew members killed in both crashes that it is “deeply sorry.”

"We made an upfront commitment to fully and fairly compensate the families of those who were lost in the accidents, and have accepted legal responsibility for the accidents in these proceedings," Boeing said, adding that it respects the families' rights to pursue claims in court.

The cases examined from Wednesday were among a group of five that potentially could have gone to trial this week, but only the two could proceed due to the government shutdown in the US.

Robert Clifford, a Chicago lawyer whose firm represents many of the victims' families, including Ndivo's parents, said attempts to reach pre-trial settlement through mediation failed in recent months.

An out-of-court settlement in one or the two cases currently on trial could still be reached at any point.