First U.S. Civil Trial Over 737 Max Ethiopia Crash Opens in Chicago as Boeing Reaches More Settlements

First U.S. civil trial over 737 Max Ethiopia crash opens as Boeing settles additional suits

CHICAGO — The first U.S. civil trial tied to the March 2019 crash of a Boeing 737 Max in Ethiopia began Wednesday in federal court in Chicago, where jurors will determine how much the aerospace company should pay the family of one of the 157 people killed.

An eight-person jury had been expected to set compensation for relatives of two women who died when Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 plunged from the sky. But moments before opening statements, U.S. District Judge Jorge Luis Alonso was told one of those cases had been settled out of court.

Fredrick Musau Ndivo, father of 28-year-old Mercy Ndivo, told the judge his family had reached a confidential settlement with Boeing and expressed gratitude. The families’ lead attorney, Robert Clifford, said two additional pending suits were recently resolved; lawyers say fewer than a dozen wrongful-death suits stemming from the crash remain unresolved.

Trial focuses on Shikha Garg

The trial that proceeded Wednesday centered on the death of Shikha Garg, a United Nations consultant who was traveling to a U.N. environmental assembly in Nairobi. Garg, a citizen of India and a newlywed, is survived by her husband and parents. Lawyers noted a settlement in her case could still be reached at any point during the trial.

In his opening statement, family attorney Shanin Specter described Garg as a young, accomplished woman and showed jurors a photograph of her in bridal attire taken months before the flight. "She was a beautiful person inside and out," Specter said, calling her death "senseless" and "preventable." He also displayed an image he described as showing an "enormous crater" at the crash site.

Boeing attorney Dan Webb, a former U.S. attorney, urged jurors to award "fair and reasonable" compensation. The company has already accepted responsibility for the Ethiopian crash and a similar 737 Max disaster off Indonesia less than five months earlier, so jurors will not decide liability. Instead, they will determine damages for burial costs, lost income and the grief suffered by immediate family members.

Disputed issue: pain before impact

One contested issue is whether passengers, including Garg, experienced pain in their final moments. Webb said Boeing would emphasize crash mechanics and present G-force data and expert analysis from an aerospace medicine specialist who is also a pilot. Because there were no survivors, Webb argued, expert reconstructions provide the clearest evidence of what passengers experienced and support Boeing’s contention that there would not have been time for physical pain before impact.

Investigators say that shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa’s Bole International Airport, the flight crew faced warnings: a stick shaker vibrated the captain’s control column to signal a possible stall, and alarms sounded as pilots struggled with the jet for roughly six minutes before it nosedived at high speed.

Wider legal backdrop

The civil case unfolds amid broader legal pressure on Boeing. U.S. prosecutors have charged the company with conspiracy to commit fraud, alleging Boeing misled regulators about a flight-control system developed for the 737 Max. Investigators say the software repeatedly pushed the nose down in the Ethiopian and Indonesian crashes based on faulty input from a single sensor.

The Justice Department has asked a federal judge in Texas to dismiss the felony charge and approve a proposed agreement under which Boeing would pay or invest an additional $1.1 billion toward fines, compensation for victims’ families and internal safety and quality improvements. If approved, that agreement would avoid a criminal prosecution under the current terms.

Reporting contributed from Las Vegas.