While one purpose of all of these lawsuits will be to provide victims of Boeing corruption some financial compensation, another and perhaps even more important purpose will be to determine what the leaders of Boeing knew and when they knew it as well as who made the deadly decision to move the new LEAP engines above the wing and who made the deadly decision to change MCAS from 0.6 degrees to 2.5 degrees with a repeat function.
Attorneys for the plaintiffs will be allowed prior to the trials to ask Boeing executives questions that thus far Boeing has refused to answer. These questions should include the following:
25 Questions to ask during Deposition and release to the public
#1 How many inches forward and how many inches up were the new LEAP engines moved on the 737 MAX in comparison to the position of the 737 NG engine on the 737 NG?
#2 Did this move increase the distance between the center of lift and the center of gravity?
#3 If yes, what was the distance between the Center of Lift and the Center of Gravity on the 737 NG and what was the distance between the Center of Lift and the Center of Gravity on the 737 MAX during a normal takeoff and ascent?
#4 Did any Boeing engineers ever express a concern that increasing the distance between the center of lift and the center of gravity might increase instability during or after takeoff?
#5 What is the distance of the 737 Max LEAP engine off the ground when the plan is fully loaded with fuel and passengers compared to the prior 737 NG Engine?
#6 What is the diameter of the 737 Max LEAP engine compared to the diameter of the prior 737 NG engine?
#7 At the highest point of the engine, how many inches is the new 737 Max LEAP engine below the top of the wing at the highest point of the engine compared to the prior 737 NG Engine?
#8 At the highest point of the engine, how many inches in front of the wing is the engine of the 737 Max compared to the prior engine on the 737 NG?
#9 At an angle of attack of 15 degrees, how many inches above the wing is the highest point of the 737 Max LEAP engine?
#10 At an angle of attack of 15 degrees, how many inches above the wing was the highest point of the prior 737 NG engine?
#11 Given that the surface area of the 737 Max engine above the wing was much greater than the surface area of the 737 NG engine above the wing, did any Boeing engineers ever express a concern that placing the engine above the wing might create turbulence over the wing leading to instability during or after takeoff?
#12 What did Boeing managers know about the instability of the Boeing 737 Max and when did they know it?
#13 Did Boeing do wind tunnel testing with a model of the 737 Max?
#14 When did Boeing decide to add MCAS to the 737 Max?
#15 How did Boeing calculate that a value of 0.6 degrees of tail flap adjustment would be enough to make the Max feel like the former 737 NG and or prevent a stall?
#16 Was this calculation based on a computer analysis or computer simulations? If so, on what data or computer program or computer simulation was this calculation based?
#17 When and who decided to change MCAS from 0.6 degrees of adjustment to 2.5 degrees of adjustment?
#18 Who made this change from 0.6 degrees to 2.5 degrees?
#19 What was the field data that led to this change?
#20 Was this change made after doing mandatory FAA anti-stall maneuvers with the real 737 Max in 2016?
#21 When was the decision made to add an infinite loop repeat function to MCAS?
#22 Who made this decision to add an infinite loop to MCAS and why was it made?
#23 When was this decision to increase the magnitude of the MCAS adjustment and add an infinite loop communicated to the FAA?
#24 When was this decision to increase the magnitude of the MCAS adjustment and add an infinite loop communicated to carriers?
#25 When was this decision to increase the magnitude of the MCAS adjustment and add an infinite loop communicated to carrier pilots?
On April 4 2019, law firms in the US filed the first wrongful death claim on behalf of a US national Sanya Stumo, against Boeing. Sanya Stumo, who died in the March crash, was a grand niece of public safety advocate and US presidential candidate Ralph Nader.
While this is a huge tragedy for the Nader family, the involvement of Ralph Nader, may help bring the facts to the public regarding what Boeing managers knew and when they knew it. Ralph Nader is without a doubt one of the most honest and courageous people in America. He has spent his entire career standing up for public safety and opposing corporate and government corruption. If there is any person in America who can actually hold a giant corporation accountable for their actions, it is Ralph Nader.
Here is a picture of Sanya Stumo, age 24:
Those who knew Samya Stumo said her altruistic nature and deep care for humanity drove her into the field of medical anthropology. Stumo, 24, was among 157 killed in the crash of an Ethiopian Airlines plane minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
"She was compassionate from the get-go," said her great-uncle, Ralph Nader. "She'd be 8 years old and she'd get a pail of hot water and go to her great-grandmother and soak her feet and rub her feet and dry them. She was always that way."
In an statement, both parents wrote that Stumo was "a fearless, radiant spirit who inspired others to live brightly and fully," and "cared most about treating all people and patients as human beings, particularly in the context of their culture, family, and individuality."
Ralph Nader had dinner with Samya Stumo the Friday before she died. When the plane crashed, Stumo was headed to Kenya as an analyst for the global health organization ThinkWell. She was there to set up offices for a project to make health care more affordable in Africa.
While most victims of the two Boeing crashes will likely settle out of court, it is likely that the Nader family will force Boeing to go to a public trial where the truth can finally come out about what happened.
Here is a link to the 52 page complaint from the Nader/Stumo family.
https://www.cliffordlaw.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Anushka-Dixit-Complaint.pdf
Here are the names and email addresses for the attorneys involved in the Nader Illinois lawsuit. If you are a whistle blower, with information about Boeing, you should contact these attorneys.
Robert A. Clifford, Kevin P. Durkin, Tracy A. Brammeier
They are working with these San Francisco attorneys:
Here is another attorney suing Boeing:
Senior Trial Attorney | Senior Partner | Vice President | Board Certified Civil Trial Advocate & Civil Pretrial Practice Advocate | Pilot
“Two highly-experienced, professional pilots could not recover from what appear to be out-of-control stalls, facts which reveal the most probable explanation for both the Lion Air crash and this crash is a design defect in the airplane’s stall recognition and recovery systems,” says board-certified trial attorney, Ronald L.M. Goldman from the law firm of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman.
“Before more people die, the B737 MAX fleet must be grounded until the NTSB gets to the bottom of the problem and Boeing fixes it. Two disasters within months of each other from the same brand-new plane under similar circumstances should be a serious red flag.”
If you lost a loved one in the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, the law firm of Baum, Hedlund, Aristei & Goldman can help you.
Here is information about other lawsuits filed against Boeing:
A search of court documents and news reports shows the company is facing at least 34 claims from victims’ families and one claim seeking class certification on behalf of shareholder. At least 29 wrongful death claims have been filed in U.S. courts against Boeing on behalf of victims of the Lion Air crash that killed all 189 people on board. At least five U.S. lawsuits have been initiated over the Ethiopian Airlines crash that resulted in the deaths of all 157 passengers and crew.
A lawsuit was filed by shareholders called Seeks v Boeing Co et al, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois, No. 19-02394. Here is a link to the complaint:
https://games-cdn.washingtonpost.com/notes/prod/default/documents/92cf559d-b1ef-4c8a-881b-4051ac75886a/note/5c70c8b9-bc83-473f-ac6c-e12ae6c10214.pdf#page=1
Lead plaintiff Richard Seeks filed the lawsuit in a Chicago federal court seeking class-action status against Boeing after the crashes of Lion Air Flight 610 on Oct. 29 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10. The lawsuit claims Boeing concealed the risks of the 737-Max design, including "the danger of the increased pitchup tendency of the aircraft. The complaint says the company ‘actively concealed’ the nature of the defects,” the Associated Press reports.
Here is information on a fourth lawsuit:
Citing “corporate greed” and “serious misconduct,” the family of an American man who died when an Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed last month filed a lawsuit against Boeing, the manufacturer of the 737 Max aircraft. The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in Chicago, where Boeing is based, on behalf of the family of Mucaad Hussein Abdalla. It is one of a growing number of claims against the company in the wake of two deadly crashes involving the 737 Max.
“In my decades of representing families of the victims of air crashes, I have never seen a case with such serious misconduct by an aircraft manufacturer,” said Floyd Wisner, one of several Houston-based attorneys representing the family.
Here is information on a fifth lawsuit:
The family of 31-year-old victim, Jackson Musoni, a Rwandan man who died in the Ethiopian crash, filed a wrongful death lawsuit claiming Boeing’s MCAS system was defectively designed. Steven C. Marks, the lawyer who filed Musoni’s complaint, criticized the certification process for the 737 Max 8, saying it amounted to an “amendment” of a 50-year-old model rather than a more rigorous approval process for a “new aircraft.” Musoni was one of 19 U.N. aid workers and staffers who were on board Flight 302, many of whom were traveling to Nairobi for the U.N. Environment Assembly.
Attorney Kevin Durkin, who specializes in plane crash cases, said that if Boeing knew of a defect in the 737 Max fleet before the crash, its potential liability would go up sharply — beyond just compensation for victims’ families for their losses. “If you have a defective product and it turns out Boeing knew about it this could easily expose them to punitive damages,” said Durkin, a partner with the Chicago’s Clifford Law Offices who isn’t involved in the Lion Air litigation. “The standard is whether they acted with a ‘conscious indifference’ to the safety of others.”
Dozens of suits over the Lion Air crash are already pending in Chicago federal court. Families of 11 Lion Air victims said at a news conference organized by Jakarta law firm Kailimang & Ponto that they are joining dozens of other Indonesian families in filing lawsuits against Boeing.
“Liability will not truly be in dispute here. Boeing is at fault. Their equipment failed. Their planes crashed twice,” Mark Lindquist, an attorney with the Herrmann Law Firm who is representing the families of 26 victims of the Lion Air crash, told Yahoo Finance. The Herrmann Law Group filed a claim on behalf of 17 Lion Air crash victims in King County, Washington, where Boeing is headquartered and where its 737 Max 8 is manufactured. The case, since moved to the federal district court for the Northern District of Illinois, now includes 24 families. The Herrmann firm expects to add two more victims to the litigation.
“Very few have been filed thus far,” Thomas Demetrio, a plaintiff’s attorney who has represented the families of multiple air crash victims, including those of Lion Air crash victims, told Yahoo Finance. “I’m sure there will be more to come.” Demetrio said he is waiting to hear the outcome of the FAA and international investigations before filing a complaint on behalf of victims of the Ethiopian Airlines crash.
The estate of victim, Rohmanir Pandi Sagala, who died in the Lion Air crash filed a federal lawsuit in the US. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois. The father of Indonesian man, Dr. Rio Nanda Putrama, filed a wrongful death lawsuit in the Circuit Court of Cook County.
Deceased Lion Air passengers Rudi Roni Lumbantoruan and Remand Ramadhan are represented by their families who also filed wrongful death actions on behalf of their estates in federal district court in the Northern District of Illinois.
Lion Air co-pilot, Harvino, who died in the Java Sea crash, is represented in a lawsuit filed by his family in December.
A similar action was filed by siblings of a 29-year-old engineer, George Kabau. Kabau’s family hopes that by filing an action Boeing will be forced to release documents, including communications, concerning its 737 Max aircraft model.
Another case is Debets v. Boeing Co., 1:19-cv-02170, U.S. District Court, Northern District of Illinois (Chicago).
According to the Wall Street Journal, a Washington DC. grand jury issued a March 11 subpoena requesting emails, correspondence, and other messages from at least one person involved in the development of the aircraft.
“It’s a very, very serious investigation into basically, was there fraud by Boeing in the certification of the 737 MAX 8?” Arthur Rosenberg, an aviation attorney who is representing six families whose relatives died in the Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air crashes, explained.
“Nobody knows the answer to that yet,” Rosenberg cautioned, adding that he had not yet seen the Justice Department’s subpoena and therefore could not know its full scope. Rosenberg expects the criminal probe to question whether Boeing fully disclosed to the FAA the engineering of the 737 Max 8’s MCAS flight control system, called MCAS (Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System), during the plane’s certification process.
Don Worley, of the McDonald Worley firm in Texas, says several people have reached out to him with regards to assessing individual cases.
WHAT YOU CAN DO IF YOU LOST A LOVED ONE
If you are the spouse, parent, or sibling of a loved one lost in the Ethiopian Airlines crash, we urge you to contact an aviation lawyer. For more information on what you can do, talk to the airplane accident lawyers at Pintas & Mullins Law Firm today. All consultations are free. Visit AirCrashSettlements.com or call 800-794-0444.
“In my 20 years of working on aviation cases, I've never seen such egregious and greedy conduct on behalf of a company," Nomi Husain, founder of Husain Law and Associates, said Monday during a news conference in downtown Houston.
Monday's lawsuit was filed on behalf of Hassan Abdi, the brother of 29-year-old Mucaad Hussein Abdalla of St. Cloud, Minn., by Husain, Houston attorney Omar Khawaja and the Illinois-based Wisner Law Firm. Abdalla was killed in the Ethiopian Airlines flight, less than two months after getting married.
Lawyers in Chicago and San Francisco have filed the suit on behalf of a Brampton, Ont., family who lost six members and a Hamilton-based man who lost his wife and three young children.
Here is a table of 20 more lawsuits filed against Boeing in May 2019
| Date |
Name |
Judge |
Case number |
| 05/21/2019 |
Rini Eka A. Soegiyono vs The Boeing Company |
Judge Sharon Coleman |
19-cv-3415 |
| 05/20/2019 |
Nadege Dubois Seex et al vs The Boeing Company |
Judge Edmond Chang |
19-cv-3392 |
| 05/20/2019 |
SPS TECHNOLOGIES vs The Boeing Company |
Judge Manish Shah |
19-cv-3365 |
| 05/20/2019 |
Pawel Konarski vs The Boeing Company |
Judge Matthew Kennelly |
19-cv-3381 |
| 05/16/2019 |
Claudio Chimenti vs Boeing Co., The |
Judge Ruben Castillo |
19-cv-3298 |
| 05/16/2019 |
Melissa Mairesse vs Boeing Company, The |
Judge Sharon Coleman |
19-cv-3297 |
| 05/15/2019 |
George Victor K'Obien vs The Boeing Company |
Judge Charles Norgle |
19-cv-3285 |
| 05/02/2019 |
Andrea Spini vs Boeing Co., The |
Judge Edmond Chang |
19-cv-2969 |
| 05/02/2019 |
Andrea Spini vs Boeing Co., The |
Judge Matthew Kennelly |
19-cv-2971 |
| 05/02/2019 |
Septiana Damayanti vs The Boeing Company |
Judge Manish Shah |
19-cv-2979 |
| 05/02/2019 |
Bias Ramadhan A.S. Bin Mi vs The Boeing Company |
Judge John Tharp Jr. |
19-cv-2980 |
| 05/02/2019 |
Anice Kasim vs The Boeing Company |
Judge Robert Gettleman |
19-cv-2982 |
| 05/02/2019 |
Rukein Binti Sudadi, et a vs The Boeing Company |
Judge John Blakey |
19-cv-2984 |
| 05/02/2019 |
Bian Daniaty Binti Udin Z vs The Boeing Company et al |
Judge Ruben Castillo |
19-cv-2987 |
| 05/01/2019 |
Anna R. Simarmata et al vs The Boeing Company |
Judge Harry Leinenweber |
19-cv-2919 |
| 04/29/2019 |
Manant Vaidya vs The Boeing Company |
Judge Joan Lefkow |
19-cv-2848 |
| 04/29/2019 |
Manant Vaidya vs The Boeing Company |
Judge Elaine Bucklo |
19-cv-2849 |
| 04/24/2019 |
Agnes Tjandra et al vs The Boeing Company |
Judge Sharon Coleman |
19-cv-2774 |
| 04/24/2019 |
Paul Njuguna Njoroge vs The Boeing Company |
Judge Manish Shah |
19-cv-2844 |
| 04/24/2019 |
Paul Njuguna Njoroge vs The Boeing Company |
Judge Sharon Coleman |
19-cv-2846 |
| 04/24/2019 |
Frederick Karanja Mungai vs Boeing Corporation, The |
Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer |
19-cv-2770 |
| 04/24/2019 |
Agnes Tjandra et al vs The Boeing Company |
Judge Sharon Coleman |
19-cv-2774 |
These lawsuits are obviously only the beginning. It is likely that there will eventually be hundreds of lawsuits against Boeing. Hopefully, one of more of these attorneys will read this report and ask Boeing the 25 questions that Boeing has not yet been willing to answer.