Global Tragedy of Negligence Act: Bringing Justice for Ethiopian Airlines’ Victims
Wreckage is piled at the crash scene. (AP Photo/Mulugeta Ayene, File)
By Jovan Nathanael – 01043170085
Reuters, AP News, CNN – When the world is still mourning after the tragedy of Lion Air airplane crash in Indonesia, another plane disaster occurred in the other part of the globe. This time, the tragedy brought with it several lives of world’s activists and stellar individuals that had been working to change the world to become a better place. Did their deaths could have been avoided if some parties did not ignore the first sign of product error? Did the mistake have to be repeated twice, with more victims to die in vain, for the parties to finally put high priority on the issue?
A month had passed since Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crashed shortly after taking off on Sunday, March 10 2019, just 5 months after Lion Air Indonesia crashed into the Java Sea. The plane was scheduled to bring all 157 passengers to Nairobi, Kenya from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia but several minutes after taking off the airline reported technical problems and had requested permission to turn back before it hit the ground near Bishoftu, southeast of Addis Ababa. The cause of the crash was reported due to a system malfunction of a certain aircraft type made by The Boeing Company, the 737 Max 8. It was the same plane malfunction that occurred on Lion Air Indonesia. With investigations ongoing, multiple countries have suspended the use of Boeing’s 737 Max 8 aircraft to avoid the same misfortune being repeated.
Nadia Mileron speaks behalf of the family of Samya Stumo regarding the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in lawsuit process. (Reuters/Kamil Krzaczynski)
This catastrophe left no one alive. Among 157 passengers of 35 nationalities, American woman with the name of Samya Stumo was one of them. She was travelling for her job with ThinkWell, Washington-based organization that focuses on health systems development. Her family is very devastated of her sudden death and demanding justice to be enforced and hold those who might cause this accountable. On April 4, the family went further by filed a wrongful death lawsuit in Chicago Federal Court against Boeing Company, which manufactured the aircraft, Ethiopian Airlines itself, and Rosemount Aerospace Inc., alleged to have manufactured a defective part of the plane. A separate claim was also filed against the Federal Aviation Administration for certifying the 737 MAX. The complaint contains nine counts brought against those companies and Ethiopian Airlines, including negligence, breach of warranty, failure to wan and civil conspiracy. This is the first suit on behalf of an American, said the family’s attorneys, and hopefully, the start of many others.
Furthermore, the lawsuit blamed Boeing for ‘putting profit over safety’ and accuses the company to rush the sales of 737 Max 8 to compete with rival company Airbus and that company’s A320 aircraft. The lawsuit also takes aim at Boeing’s Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, otherwise known as MCAS. The system is meant to automatically lower the nose of the plane when a sensor indicates that the aircraft is at risk of stalling. The lawsuit says Rosemount manufactured the sensor. Investigators in both the Ethiopian Airlines and the Lion Air crash who have focused on MCAS and its possible role in both crashes supported this claim. The Stumo’s family’s lawsuit points to Boeing’s claim the 737 Max 8 was so similar to past 737 models that pilots would not need to be retrained, hoping more airlines would then purchase the plane. Ultimately, the lawsuit says, that meant pilots weren’t aware of the MCAS system, since it was meant to operate automatically. Pilots who did receive training reported the MCAS system was not mentioned, the lawsuit claims. According to a preliminary report by the Ethiopian Transport Ministry, the pilots on Flight 302 repeatedly performed all of Boeing’s procedures but were unable to regain control of the aircraft before it crashed.
At a press conference on Thursday, April 4, tears flowed heavily as the Stumo’s family explained that if their daughter did not die at such young age of 24 she would have change the world. The family saw her as a resourceful and compassionate woman and had great passion in global health. Her brother, Adnaan, said that as she grew up, Samya taught him about self-awareness, sensitivity to others, and joyfulness. Her uncle, former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, also described her as someone that ‘had compassion and intellectual rigor written all over her and would drop anything to help everybody’. A boycott of the 737 MAX must be implemented, he added. The victim’s mother said through tears that the Ethiopian disaster could have been prevented following the Lion Air crash and family cannot even properly bury her as there were no survivors and they wouldn’t be able to bring home fragments of her body from Ethiopia. All that left for the family to mourn on is the fond memories and strong legacies that she left behind.
Unfortunately, Boeing kept their mouth shut with Rosemount also declined to comment. They claimed that they are currently trying to fix the system but isn’t a little too late when hundreds of lives had been lost? The families still have a long journey ahead of them to enforce the justice the victims deserve. Law experts expressed that they would face obstacles and high hurdle since government officials and agencies are generally immune from civil lawsuits.
(AP News) = https://www.apnews.com/fd2ec5543b464084b8642cac82fd6f88
(Reuters) = https://www.reuters.com/article/us-ethiopia-airplane-lawsuit/family-of-american-woman-sues-boeing-ethiopian-airlines-over-737-max-crash-idUSKCN1RG27G
(CNN) = https://edition.cnn.com/2019/04/04/world/ethiopian-airlines-crash-preliminary-report-intl/index.html