Source : THE AGE NEWS
One of the last remaining wrongful death lawsuits brought in connection with the tragedy that claimed the lives of all 157 people aboard Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 was resolved by the conviction, which was reached following a test in federal judge in Chicago.
Samya Stumo, a native of Sheffield, Massachusetts, late founded a nonprofit that aims to advance the health systems of developing nations. When the aircraft crashed minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa on March 10, 2019, she was a 2015 University of Massachusetts Amherst student and was visiting Uganda for what would have been her first big project.
After the accident, a UMass director described her as one known for “inviting people by earning their admiration, compassion, and trust.”
According to attorneys for Stumo’s estate, the jury awarded$ US21 million for the pain, suffering, and emotional distress suffered by her onboard the doomed flight,$ US16.5 million for her family’s loss of companionship, and$ US12 million for their grief.
In a speech announcing the conviction on Wednesday night, prosecutors Shanin Specter and Elizabeth Crawford said,” We are grateful for the opportunity to try the punitive damages situation.”
The accident was the second ruling. In the majority of the dozens of wrongful death claims brought by Boeing in connection with the disaster that resulted in the deaths of 346 people and a comparable 737 Max fall off Indonesia five months earlier, Boeing has reached personal settlements before trial.
The fatal accidents turned out to be a determining issue for Boeing and the 737 Max software. Aircraft in both crashes were unable to regain control of the then-new planes after a flight control system regularly forced the nose upward based on incorrect readings from a single detector.
The jury awarded Shikha Garg, a United Nations climate specialist who also passed away in the 2019 collision,$ US28.45 million in November 2025. Jurors were merely charged with calculating damages in that case because Boeing accepted responsibility. This was the first legal jury trial to be held accountable for the disaster.
” We are profoundly sad for all those who lost loved ones on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 and Lion Air Flight 610,” the company said. People are entitled to do their states through the court procedure, and we respect their right to do so,” a Boeing spokesperson said on Thursday in a speech.” We have resolved almost all of these states through towns, but we have done so through settlements.”
The 737 Max was grounded worldwide after Ethiopian Airlines ‘ collision, which lasted more than a year, and led to numerous studies into Boeing’s health culture and regulatory supervision.
Federal prosecutors after charged Boeing with inflating regulations with the Max’s flight control system, but a federal judge in Texas who was looking into the long-running legal case in November approved a Justice Department’s request to ignore it. A settlement between Boeing and the prosecution required the company to invest an additional$ US1 billion in fines, family compensation, and safety improvements.
Stumo’s community has been one of the most vocal advocates for changes to federal aircraft supervision and accountability from Boeing. Her parents, Michael Stumo, has officially pressed Boeing, officials, and Congress over what they believed to be mistakes that allowed the 737 Max to continue flying after the first fall off Indonesia’s coast.
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