Over six months after the ill-fated Ethiopian airline crashed, the families affected by the crash will finally receive the long awaited compensation from Boeing.
The families of victims of the ill-fated Ethiopian Airlines plane crash of March 10, 2019, are set to receive $144,500 each (Sh15 million) from Boeing in compensation. The money will come from a $50 million compensation fund, announced by Boeing in July this year.
The compensation fund is for each person who died in the Ethiopian Airlines crash in March this year as well as the Indonesian accident in October 2018. The company said that application for compensation should be made before 2020.
The families affected by the fatal crash on March 10 have been in and out of court in search of a good compensation. According to some of the lawyers representing them, the offer is a gift in disguise. However, some lawyers thought that the compensation could still be more.
Murang’a Senator Irungu Kang’ata, whose law firm is part of a team representing 15 families, advised the affected families to take the deal offered by Boeing.
“The gift from Boeing is welcome as long as it does not have strings attached to it,” Mr. Kang’ata said as quoted by Business Daily, “Boeing should not use the gift as a ploy to influence the jury. It should also disclose the methods of disbursement of those funds noting so far the information remains hazy.”
Lion Air Flight 610 crash
The Ethiopian airline’s Boeing 737 max crashed on March 10, killing 157 people including 32 Kenyans. The passenger flight was bound for Nairobi from Addis Ababa during the fateful day. The plane is said to have lost contacts just six minutes after leaving Bole International Airport.
Boeing will also pay families of the 189 victims of the Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610. The Boeing 737 MAX 8 operating the route crashed into the Java Sea 12 minutes after takeoff, killing all 189 passengers and crew.
The plane manufacturer has been on the spot ever since the two crashes occcured. Boeing was forced to halt its 737 Max from flying while they figure out how the crashes came to happen.
Cause of crashes
The ill-fated Ethiopian Airlines started experiencing trouble immediately after take-off, according to traffic controllers at Bole International Airport, who have revealed that the pilots said they were experiencing technical problems. The Boeing’s brand-new 737 Max 8 appeared to climb and dive several times before nosediving, killing all 157 people on board.
A similar thing happened to the Indonesian Lion Air Flight 610 which crashed 12 minutes after taking off. With flight Lion Air JT610, the Alpha Vane sensor measuring the Angle of Attack (AOA) on the Captain’s side was reported to be faulty. So they changed it. That fault was reported from the equally harrowing flight from Bali to Jakarta.
Boeing CEO Dennis Muilenburg on Monday expressed ‘deepest sympathies’ to families who lost their kin, even as he intimated that he hopes the 737 MAX 8 model will resume operations in October.
