A French widow whose husband was killed in the Boeing plan that crashed in Ethiopia in March has sued the aircraft maker for compensation. According to information released by her lawyer Nadege Dubois-Seex is seeking at least $276 million (about Ksh27 billion) in damages.
Her husband, Jonathan Seex, was among 157 passengers are crew who perished in the Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 Boeing 737 MAX airliner, which nosedived a dozen minutes after take-off from Addis Ababa International Airport.
“It is a tragedy which, by definition, could have been avoided, because it had already happened five months before. How could they stay deaf to this warning?” Dubois-Seex told reporters in Paris on Tuesday, referring to another Boeing 737 Max 8 in Indonesian company Lion Air’s fleet that crashed last October, leaving 189 people dead.
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She has filed the lawsuit in the US city of Chicago, where Boeing is headquartered. Nadege argues that Boeing failed to inform pilots properly about the risks posed by software meant to prevent the 737 MAX from stalling which repeatedly lowered the plane’s nose due to a faulty sensor data, according to US attorney Nomaan Husain.
“Once again corporate greed has placed profits over safety with tragic consequences for the public,” Husain said in a written statement quoted by Reuters. “We have learned that Boeing relied on a single sensor that had been previously flagged in over 200 incident reports submitted to the FAA (U.S. Federal Aviation Administration).”
Husain said in Paris he was seeking a minimum of $276 million in damages for his client. “The life of my husband was taken knowingly, and even willingly,” Dubois-Seex said, visibly emotional. “Boeing acted with cynicism. My husband was the collateral damage of a system, of a business strategy.”
Boeing admitted Saturday that it had to correct flaws in the flight simulator software used to train pilots on the 737 Max, following the two deadly crashes that killed a total of 346 people. The aerospace company did not share when or how the flaws were discovered, however.
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Boeing spokesman Peter Pedraza declined to comment on the lawsuit, but noted that the company was “cooperating fully” with investigations into the Ethiopian Airlines crash.
Jonathan, who was a Swedish and Kenyan citizen, has left behind three young children aged 7 to 10. The family’s lawyer Nomaan Husain said that the evidence clearly demonstrates that Boeing acted recklessly and with conscious disregard to the safety of its passengers.
Dozens of families have sued Boeing over the Lion Air crash, and several lawsuits have been lodged over the Ethiopian crash.
Boeing said had completed an update to the 737 MAX’s MCAS software and was in the process of submitting a plan for related pilot training to the FAA. Airlines around the world grounded the 737 MAX after the Ethiopian Airlines crash, the second for the Boeing model in five months.
A Lion Air 737 MAX plunged into the ocean off Indonesia in similar circumstances last October killing all 189 aboard. Dozens of families have sued Boeing over the Lion Air crash, and several lawsuits have been lodged over the Ethiopian crash.
It is unclear when the 737 MAX aircraft will receive FAA approval to return to service. Safety regulators in other countries have said they plan to independently assess Boeing’s fixes before giving their approval.
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