Boeing 737 MAX crash trial opens over UN worker's death

A US trial opened Monday over the death of Michael “Mick” Ryan, a United Nations World Food Programme engineer killed in the March 2019 Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX crash.

A Chicago jury will hear claims from Ryan's survivors to determine damages. The trial is expected to take about 12 days, with testimony from Ryan's family and colleagues.

Ryan, who was 39, died when the Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX crashed moments after leaving Addis Ababa for Kenya. The case is one of the final civil claims stemming from two Boeing 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed 346 people.

Plaintiffs include Ryan's widow, Naoise Ryan, and their children Saorlaith and MacDara, who were three years old and six months old at the time of the crash.

Steven Marks, Naoise Ryan's attorney, told AFP that she would not accept a settlement directly from Boeing and was seeking a jury's decision. Naoise Ryan rejected Boeing's voluntary payments to victims as “blood money” and redirected her $1.65 million allotment to an aviation safety foundation.

Boeing has apologised for the crashes and acknowledged that anti-stall software was implicated in both accidents. The company has settled the vast majority of claims, with agreements not made public.

In May, a Chicago jury awarded $49.5 million in damages to the family of Samya Stumo, a 24-year-old American killed on the same Ethiopian Airlines flight.