Clifford Law Offices of Chicago and Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy of San Francisco, internationally recognized aviation firms, filed lawsuits on Monday, April 29, 2019, on behalf of the families of 10 Canadians who were killed in the tragic crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Max8 aircraft. The victims include three generations of one family, and the wife and three children, including a nine month old of another family, all from the Toronto area.
The complaint was filed in federal district court in Chicago against Boeing, manufacturer of the plane, based in Chicago, and Rosemount Aerospace, Inc. of Minnesota that manufactured the allegedly defective part. Separate claims were also filed against the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on behalf of the families.
A PRESS CONFERENCE WAS HELD MONDAY, APRIL 29, AT 12 NOON CST AT 120 N. LASALLE ST., 11TH FLOOR. ATTORNEYS FOR THE FAMILIES WERE PRESENT AS WELL AS FAMILY MEMBERS WHO MADE STATEMENTS TO THE PRESS. THE FILED COMPLAINTS AND ADMINISTRATIVE CLAIMS AGAINST THE FAA ARE AVAILABLE AS WELL AS PHOTOS OF THE FAMILIES.
A federal complaint and a claim against the FAA were filed on behalf of the Manant Vaidya family who lost three generations of family members – his only sister and her husband along with their two teenage children. Vaidya also lost his parents in the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302. A complaint and FAA claim also will be filed on behalf of Paul Njoroge who lost his entire immediate family.
“This crash is tragic for every family who lost loved ones, but these families from Canada are particularly impacted because the Vaidyas lost three generations – grandparents, parents and children,” said Robert A. Clifford, founder and senior partner at Clifford Law Offices in Chicago. “Paul Njoroge lost his wife and three young children, including little nine-month-old Rubi. These lawsuits will demonstrate the shortcuts and greed of Boeing and others as well as the utter disregard of the passengers they were to protect that could have avoided this tragic crash.”
Frank Pitre, from Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy, said, “Boeing and the FAA abdicated their safety responsibilities, and as a result, pilots and passengers became guinea pigs for real world testing of aircraft with known hazardous design characteristics and defective software systems. These families were destroyed by a profound breach of trust.”
The complaint alleges negligence as well as breach of warranty, strict liability, failure to warn and civil conspiracy. The complaint states that “Blinded by its greed, Boeing haphazardly rushed the 737 MAX8 to market, with the knowledge and tacit approval of the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).” It goes on to state of “Boeing’s decision to put profits over safety…and the regulators that enabled it, must be held accountable for their reckless actions.”
Investigators are focusing on a suspect automated flight-control system called MCAS that activated before the planes nosed-dived into the earth. Pilots in the cockpits were unable to override the system. Possible connections also are being investigated between the crash of the Ethiopian Max8 and that of Lion Air Flight 610, another new Max8 that crashed into the Java Sea off of Indonesia less than five months earlier.
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For further information or to speak to Robert A. Clifford or Frank Pitre, please contact Pamela Sakowicz Menaker at 847-721-0909 (cell) at Clifford Law Offices or Alison Cordova at 425-772-7404 (cell) at Cotchett, Pitre & McCarthy or Lee Houskeeper at 415-654-9141 (cell).
THE PRESS CONFERENCE WILL BE STREAMED LIVE AND CAN BE VIEWED AT: https://tinyurl.com/EthiopianCrashPressConference
Complaints and claims filed against the defendants as well as statements by family members, photos and exhibits also can be found at cliffordlaw.com/ethiopian-press-conference