Boeing reaches settlement with Canadian whose family died in 2019 plane crash in Ethiopia

The Associated Press

· Posted: Jul 11, 2025 8:26 PM EDT | Last Updated: 12 hours ago

Boeing reached a colony connected Friday with a Canadian antheral whose woman and 3 children were killed successful a deadly 2019 level clang successful Ethiopia, averting the archetypal proceedings connected to the devastating lawsuit that led to a worldwide grounding of Max jets.

The assemblage proceedings astatine Chicago's national tribunal had been acceptable to commencement connected Monday to find damages for Paul Njoroge of Canada. His household was heading to their autochthonal Kenya successful March 2019 aboard Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 erstwhile it malfunctioned and plummeted to the ground. The wreck killed each 157 radical connected board.

Njoroge, 41, had planned to attest astir however the clang affected his life. He has been incapable to instrumentality to his household location successful Toronto due to the fact that the memories are excessively painful. He hasn't been capable to find a job. And helium has weathered disapproval from relatives for not travelling alongside his woman and children.

"He's got analyzable grief and sorrow and his ain affectional stress," said Njoroge's lawyer, Robert Clifford. "He's haunted by nightmares and the nonaccomplishment of his woman and children."

Terms of the settlement were not disclosed publicly.

Clifford said his lawsuit intended to question "millions" successful damages connected behalf of his woman and children, but helium declined to publically specify an magnitude up of the trial.

"The aviation squad astatine Clifford Law Offices has been moving round-the-clock successful mentation for trial, but the mediator was capable to assistance the parties travel to an agreement," Clifford said successful a connection connected Friday.

A Boeing spokesperson said connected Friday the institution had nary comment.

The proceedings were not expected to delve into technicalities involving the Max mentation of Boeing's bestselling 737 airplane, which has been the root of persistent troubles for the institution since the Ethiopia clang and 1 the twelvemonth earlier successful Indonesia. A combined 346 people, including passengers and unit members, died successful those crashes.

Boeing accepted work for crash

In 2021, Chicago-based Boeing accepted work for the Ethiopia clang successful a woody with the victims' families that allowed them to prosecute idiosyncratic claims successful U.S. courts alternatively of their location countries. Citizens of 35 countries were killed. Several victims' families person already settled. Terms of those agreements besides were not made public.

The jetliner heading to Nairobi mislaid power soon aft takeoff from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport and nose-dived into a barren spot of land.

Investigators determined the Ethiopia and Indonesia crashes were caused by a strategy that relied connected a sensor that provided faulty readings and pushed the level noses down, leaving pilots incapable to regain control. After the Ethiopia crash, Max jets were grounded worldwide until the institution redesigned the system.

This year, Boeing reached a woody with the U.S. Justice Department to debar transgression prosecution in some crashes.

Among those killed were Njoroge's wife, Carolyne, and 3 tiny children, Ryan, 6, Kellie, 4, and Rubi, nine months, the youngest to dice connected the plane. Njoroge besides mislaid his mother-in-law, whose household has a abstracted case.

Njoroge, who met his woman successful assemblage successful Nairobi, was surviving successful Canada astatine the clip of the crash. He had planned to articulation his household successful Kenya astatine a aboriginal date.

He testified earlier U.S. Congress successful 2019 astir repeatedly imagining however his household suffered during the flight, which lasted lone six minutes. He has pictured his woman struggling to clasp their babe successful her thigh with 2 different children seated nearby.

"I enactment up nights reasoning of the fearfulness that they indispensable person endured," Njoroge said. "The six minutes volition everlastingly beryllium embedded successful my mind. I was not determination to assistance them. I couldn't prevention them."