Aircraft maker Boeing was headquartered in Chicago until 2023, when it relocated to Arlington, Virginia.
CHICAGO - Boeing has settled another of the lawsuits lodged against the company as a result of a 2019 airliner crash in Ethiopia.
On Jan. 14, attorneys with the firm of Clifford Law, of Chicago, announced the settlement on behalf of their client, a Canadian man identified as Manant Vaidya, of Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
According to a release from Clifford Law, the settlement deal was struck moments before a trial was set to begin to resolve the case.
According to the release, the amounts and terms of the settlement are confidential.
Vaidya had filed suit in 2019 in Chicago federal court against the aircraft maker, which was then headquartered in Chicago.
According to court documents, Vaidya's lawsuit sought payment from Boeing for the deaths of three family members, including his parents, Pannagesh and Hansini Vaidya, and his sister, Kosha Vaidya, in the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in March 2019.
The crash also claimed the lives of Kosha's husband, Preritkumar Dixit, and their two children, Ashka and Anushka Dixit.
The family members were among 157 people who died in the crash, which occurred shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, en route to Nairobi, Kenya.
According to court documents, the Vaidya family members were traveling together at the time to visit a family birthplace over spring break and to visit friends who lived there.
In the release announcing the settlement, Clifford Law senior partner Robert Clifford said: “Boeing accepted full responsibility for the senseless and preventable loss of these innocent lives, and this corporate giant has now been held accountable to this family, especially to this good man who lost his dear mom, dad, and sister.”
The Vaidya lawsuit was among dozens that have been filed against Boeing stemming from the crash, which came amid a spate of litigation against the Chicago-based aircraft maker over two aircraft crashes involving the Boeing 737 Max 8 airliner.
In addition to the Ethiopian Air crash, Boeing also has been hit with lawsuits from the families of those who died in the crash of Lion Air Flight 610 in 2018 in Indonesia.
Both crashes combined resulted in 346 deaths.
According to published reports, Boeing has paid out billions of dollars to date to the families of the crash victims, and to settle a regulatory action brought by the U.S. government.
All of the legal actions center on claims that Boeing had designed the 737 Max crafts with faulty control systems which reportedly supplied bad sensor data, forcing the nose of the aircraft down and leading to crashes and other incidents.
Boeing grounded its fleet of 737 Max airliners from 2019-2020 and again in 2024 to address the reported problems.
