Boeing has reached a settlement with a Canadian man whose wife and three children were killed after an Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX crashed shortly after taking off from Adiss Ababa in 2019.
The case against Boeing on behalf of Paul Njoroge from Toronto was settled on the eve of trial on July 11, 2025, for a confidential amount.
US District Court Judge Jorge Alonso in Chicago was set to begin jury selection on July 14, 2025, at the Dirksen Federal Building when it was announced that both parties had reached an agreement through a mediator.
The trial that was set to determine damages for Njoroge who lost his wife, Carolyne, 34, and three small children, Ryan, six, Kellie, four, and Rubi, nine months old, the youngest to be killed on the plane. Njoroge also lost his mother-in-law in the crash.
Ethiopian Airlines flight 302, crashed shortly after take-off on the morning of March 10, 2019, from Addis Ababa airport bound for Nairobi. In total 157 died as a result of the crash.
The cause of the 2019 crash related to a malfunction in the aircraft's Manoeuvring Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), an automated system designed to push the nose of the aircraft down if it detects a stall risk, based on inputs from the angle of attack sensors. On flight 302, one of these sensors gave faulty readings, causing the MCAS to incorrectly activate and push the plane’s nose down.
Following the crash, 737 MAX aircraft were grounded worldwide until the company redesigned the system.
In December 2023, the US District Court for the Northern District of Illinois ruled that Boeing must offer settlements in every remaining lawsuit pertaining to the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX 8 crash.
“The aviation team at Clifford Law Offices has been working tirelessly in preparation for trial, but the mediator was able to help the parties reach an agreement on behalf of Paul Njoroge,” said Robert Clifford, founder and senior partner of Clifford Law Offices, the firm representing Njoroge.
The parties will return to court before Judge Alonso on July 16, to discuss the next Boeing cases scheduled for trial on November 3, 2025.
Airline Economics has contacted Boeing for comment.
In April Boeing reached settlements with the families of two people killed in the 2019 crash, the night before the trial was set to commence in Chicago. This trial was anticipated to be the first against Boeing following the crash of flight 302 and Lion Air Flight 610, which had crashed a year earlier due to the same MCAS issue.
To date, Boeing has settled more than 90% of claims from the two 737 MAX accidents in 2018 and 2019.
Boeing has also previously paid billions of dollars in compensation to the families and their lawyers. This includes compensation through this civil litigation process, payments under the Deferred Prosecution Agreement (DPA), and other compensation since the accidents
Boeing originally agreed to pay $2.1bn in a 2021 DPA with the US Department of Justice (DOJ), which included $500 million to a victim's fund, set up for the families of those who died in two separate 737 MAX crashes, in addition to a $243 million criminal penalty.