Boeing reached an agreement on Friday with a Canadian man whose wife and three children perished in the tragic 2019 Ethiopian crash, preventing the first trial related to the incident that resulted in the global suspension of Max jets.
The trial in Chicago’s federal court was scheduled to commence on Monday to assess compensation for Paul Njoroge from Canada. In March 2019, while his family was flying to their homeland, Kenya, aboard Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, the aircraft malfunctioned and crashed, killing all 157 passengers.
Njoroge, aged 41, intended to recount the profound impact the crash had on his life. He has not been able to return to their family residence in Toronto due to the painful memories. He struggles to secure employment and has faced criticism from family members for not accompanying his wife and children on their journey.
“He’s got complicated grief and sorrow and his own emotional stress,” said Njoroge’s attorney, Robert Clifford. “He’s haunted by nightmares and the loss of his wife and children.”
Terms of the deal were not disclosed publicly.
Clifford said his client intended to seek “millions” in damages on behalf of his wife and children, but declined to publicly specify an amount ahead of the trial.
“The aviation team at Clifford Law Offices has been working round-the-clock in preparation for trial, but the mediator was able to help the parties come to an agreement,” Clifford said in a statement Friday.
Boeing officials didn’t immediately respond to emails seeking comment.
The proceedings were not expected to delve into technicalities involving the Max version of Boeing’s bestselling 737 airplane, which has been the source of persistent troubles for the company since the Ethiopia crash and one the year before in Indonesia. A combined 346 people, including passengers and crew members, died in those crashes.
In 2021, Chicago-based Boeing accepted responsibility for the Ethiopia crash in a deal with the victims’ families that allowed them to pursue individual claims in U.S. courts instead of their home countries. Citizens of 35 countries were killed. Several families of victims have already settled. Terms of those agreements also were not made public.
The jetliner heading to Nairobi lost control shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport and nose-dived into a barren patch of land.
Investigators determined the Ethiopia and Indonesia crashes were caused by a system that relied on a sensor that provided faulty readings and pushed the plane noses down, leaving pilots unable to regain control. After the Ethiopia crash, Max jets were grounded worldwide until the company redesigned the system.
This year, Boeing reached a deal with the U.S. Justice Department to avoid criminal prosecutions in both crashes.
Among those killed were Njoroge’s wife, Carolyne, and three small children, Ryan, age 6, Kellie, 4, and Rubi, 9 months old, the youngest to die on the plane. Njoroge also lost his mother-in-law, whose family has a separate case.
Njoroge, who met his wife in college in Nairobi, was living in Canada at the time of the crash. He had planned to join his family in Kenya later.
He testified before Congress in 2019 about repeatedly imagining how his family suffered during the flight, which lasted only six minutes. He has pictured his wife struggling to hold their infant in her lap with two other children seated nearby.
“I stay up nights thinking of the horror that they must have endured,” Njoroge said. “The six minutes will forever be embedded in my mind. I was not there to help them. I couldn’t save them.”
