Crash victims' families sue Boeing

The relatives of Kenyans who perished in the ill-fated Ethiopian Airlines crash last month are suing the American airline manufacturer, Boeing Company.

The families allege that the manufacturer introduced a defective product into the market and the new tech-design of the 737 MAX 8 may have caused the crash.

The announcement was made in Nairobi on Wednesday by a consortium of both local and US-based lawyers, who said the lawsuit, brought by eight families, will be filed in Chicago, where the plane manufacturer is headquartered.

Ethiopian Airlines 302 crashed eight minutes after takeoff from Bole International Airport in Ethiopia en route to Nairobi on March 10, killing all 158 people on board.

Kenya suffered the biggest loss with 32 people, followed by Canada with 18, Ethiopia with nine, China and Italy with eight each, France and Britain with seven each and Egypt with six, among others.

The plane was a Boeing 737-800 Max, the same model as the Lion Air plane that crashed in Indonesia, which killed 189 people in October last year.

Carlos Velasquez, of VDA Trial Lawyers, based in Florida, who will be responsible for all aspects of the representation in the US, said the consortium of six law firms will seek to make claims to the parties that are responsible for the air disaster.

"Those parties include, of course, the airline, the manufacturer and others. It is early in terms of investigations to determine culpability, but from the reports that we have so far, clearly there were some issues with the aircraft itself, which led to the unfortunate crash," Valasquez said at a press briefing.

He explained that the suit is being filed in the US because that is Boeing’s principal place of business. "The lawsuits are being filed in the federal courts of the United States. We are seeking compensation for the survivors and this includes economic loses and loss of financial and psychological support for the families. There is no value put on life so we are going to seek the best compensation possible for the families. We have been doing this for the last 30 years and I am confident of a positive outcome," he said.

Laban Opande, an attorney also based in the US, said the process was likely to bring up other issues touching on international, immigration, personal injury and family injury law, with the biggest component being aviation law.

"But we believe that collectively, we will help the families navigate through that process," he said.

He said the consortium is still meeting with the families to take them through the representation process.

Mohammed Nyaoga, one of the local lawyers, said the firms would provide the link between the families and the American firms. "There might be cases we are required to prepare documentation and we will do this," he said.

Ethiopian authorities were scheduled to publish a preliminary report from the recovered black boxes on Monday, but this did not take place.