A jury in Chicago has awarded $29 million in damages to the family of Michael Ryan, an Irish national who died in the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines Flight ET302 crash. Ryan's widow, Naoise Connolly Ryan, filed a civil suit against Boeing.
The Ethiopian Airlines flight, a Boeing 737 MAX-8, took off from Addis Ababa on March 10, 2019, and crashed six minutes later near the town of Bishoftu, approximately 30 miles southeast of the airport. All 157 people on board were killed.
An investigation by Ethiopia's Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau indicated that while the plane's takeoff appeared normal, a malfunction in flight angle sensors triggered an automated safety system. This system repeatedly pushed the aircraft's nose down. The preliminary report suggested pilots attempted to disengage the system and manually control the plane, but the system's repeated downward pressure ultimately led to the crash.
A similar automated system malfunction was also implicated in the fatal Lion Air flight crash in 2018, which also involved a Boeing 737 MAX-8 aircraft. These incidents led to a worldwide grounding of the 737 MAX fleet.
Michael Ryan was a father of two, living in Cork, Ireland, and originally from County Clare. The civil suit against Boeing was heard in Chicago, a key venue for litigation involving the aircraft manufacturer.