Rwandan citizen filed first lawsuit against Boeing over Ethiopian Airlines crash

A first lawsuit has been filed against the giant aeronautic manufacturing company, Boeing at the U.S. federal court on Thursday,  28^th March, 2019 over the 10^th March, 2019  Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX 8 crash that killed 157 people on board from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia to Nairobi, Kenya.

The first lawsuit was filed in Chicago federal court in the United Stated by the family of Jackson Musoni, a citizen of Rwanda, and alleges that Boeing, which manufactures the 737 MAX, had defectively designed the automated flight control system.

In response to the lawsuit, Boeing said that it could not comment on the lawsuit. The only information given by Boeing was, “Boeing … is working with the authorities to evaluate new information as it becomes available.” It added that adding all inquiries about the ongoing accident investigation must be directed to the investigating authorities.

The Ethiopian Airline Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashed and the Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX 8 crashes in a space of 5 months in a what many described as crashes in similar fashion has resulted to a public outcry about the safety of the Boeing 737 MAX 8 model which had led to the grounding of all the model until further investigations in the crashes that killed 346 persons in the space of 5 months.

In a report released by Boeing on Wednesday, 28^th March, 2019, the giant plane manufacturer stated that it had reprogrammed software on its 737 MAX to prevent erroneous data from triggering an anti-stall system that is facing mounting scrutiny in the wake of two deadly nose-down crashes in the past five months. They added that the anti-stall system, which is believed to have repeatedly forced the nose lower in at least one of the accidents, in Indonesia last October, would only do so once per event after sensing a problem, giving pilots more control.

The suit filed on stated that Boeing failed to warn the public, airlines and pilots of the airplane’s allegedly erroneous sensors, causing the aircraft to dive automatically and uncontrollably leading to the death of unsuspecting passengers.