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A French woman whose husband was among the 157 people killed in the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines airliner in March has filed a lawsuit against Boeing, manufacturer of the 737 Max 8, seeking $276 million in damages.
“It is a tragedy which, by definition, could have been avoided, because it had already happened five months before. How could they stay deaf to this warning?” Nadege Dubois-Seex told reporters Tuesday in Paris, referring to an Indonesian Max 8 owned by Lion Air that crashed in October, leaving 189 people dead.
Dubois-Seex, whose husband Jonathan — a Swedish and Kenyan citizen and CEO of the Tamarind Group of Cos — died in the crash, filed the suit in US District Court in Chicago, where Boeing’s headquarters is located.
Along with Jonathan’s mother, Britt-Marie Seex, she argues that the company failed to take the necessary measures after the Lion Air disaster as the group feared negative financial repercussions if the reputation of the aircraft was tarnished.
“We believe that the evidence in this case will clearly demonstrate that Boeing acted recklessly, wilfully and with conscious disregard to the safety of its passengers,” their lawyer Nomaan Husain told a press conference in Paris, according to Agence France-Presse.
He accused the manufacturer of putting “profit over safety.”
The complaint alleges Boeing failed to inform pilots properly about the risks posed by anti-stall software that repeatedly lowered the Max 8’s nose due to faulty sensor data.
“We have learned that Boeing relied on a single sensor that had been previously flagged in over 200 incident reports submitted to the FAA,”
Husain said in a statement.
On Saturday, Boeing admitted it had to correct flaws in the flight simulator software used to train pilots on the Max planes and said it was in the process of submitting a plan for related pilot training to the FAA.
It is unclear when the Max planes will receive FAA approval to return to service
The Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System anti-stall flight control system known by its acronym, MCAS — which pushes the nose of the aircraft down if it senses an imminent stall — is believed to have played a role in the two crashes.
“The life of my husband was taken knowingly, and even willingly,” an emotional Dubois-Seex said Tuesday, according to CNN. “Boeing acted with cynicism. My husband was the collateral damage of a system, of a business strategy.”
Explaining how he arrived at the damages being sought, Husain said: “In 2018, Boeing grossed $101 billion. When you take that figure and divide it by 365, you arrive at the figure of $276 million.”
“Is one day’s worth of gross receipts by Boeing severe enough to deter future behavior? Or is it one week’s worth of wages, or one month, or one year? That’s going to be for the jury to decide.”
Boeing rep Peter Pedraza declined to comment on the lawsuit, but told CNN the company was “cooperating fully” with the probe.
Meanwhile, another lawsuit has been filed in Paris by the family of another of the French victims.
The suit, which accuses Boeing of “involuntary homicide,” also cites the Lion Air crash and says that “technical failure could not have been ignored” by the manufacturer.
“We did not wait for Boeing’s confessions over the existence of faults to seek the penal responsibility of the manufacturer,” the family’s lawyer Yassine Bouzrou said. “Boeing’s very grave behaviour will only be resolved through the path of seeking compensation.”
“It is a tragedy which, by definition, could have been avoided, because it had already happened five months before. How could they stay deaf to this warning?” Nadege Dubois-Seex told reporters Tuesday in Paris, referring to an Indonesian Max 8 owned by Lion Air that crashed in October, leaving 189 people dead.
Dubois-Seex, whose husband Jonathan — a Swedish and Kenyan citizen and CEO of the Tamarind Group of Cos — died in the crash, filed the suit in US District Court in Chicago, where Boeing’s headquarters is located.
Along with Jonathan’s mother, Britt-Marie Seex, she argues that the company failed to take the necessary measures after the Lion Air disaster as the group feared negative financial repercussions if the reputation of the aircraft was tarnished.
“We believe that the evidence in this case will clearly demonstrate that Boeing acted recklessly, wilfully and with conscious disregard to the safety of its passengers,” their lawyer Nomaan Husain told a press conference in Paris, according to Agence France-Presse.
He accused the manufacturer of putting “profit over safety.”
The complaint alleges Boeing failed to inform pilots properly about the risks posed by anti-stall software that repeatedly lowered the Max 8’s nose due to faulty sensor data.
“We have learned that Boeing relied on a single sensor that had been previously flagged in over 200 incident reports submitted to the FAA,”
Husain said in a statement.
On Saturday, Boeing admitted it had to correct flaws in the flight simulator software used to train pilots on the Max planes and said it was in the process of submitting a plan for related pilot training to the FAA.
It is unclear when the Max planes will receive FAA approval to return to service
The Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System anti-stall flight control system known by its acronym, MCAS — which pushes the nose of the aircraft down if it senses an imminent stall — is believed to have played a role in the two crashes.
“The life of my husband was taken knowingly, and even willingly,” an emotional Dubois-Seex said Tuesday, according to CNN. “Boeing acted with cynicism. My husband was the collateral damage of a system, of a business strategy.”
Explaining how he arrived at the damages being sought, Husain said: “In 2018, Boeing grossed $101 billion. When you take that figure and divide it by 365, you arrive at the figure of $276 million.”
“Is one day’s worth of gross receipts by Boeing severe enough to deter future behavior? Or is it one week’s worth of wages, or one month, or one year? That’s going to be for the jury to decide.”
Boeing rep Peter Pedraza declined to comment on the lawsuit, but told CNN the company was “cooperating fully” with the probe.
Meanwhile, another lawsuit has been filed in Paris by the family of another of the French victims.
The suit, which accuses Boeing of “involuntary homicide,” also cites the Lion Air crash and says that “technical failure could not have been ignored” by the manufacturer.
“We did not wait for Boeing’s confessions over the existence of faults to seek the penal responsibility of the manufacturer,” the family’s lawyer Yassine Bouzrou said. “Boeing’s very grave behaviour will only be resolved through the path of seeking compensation.”
