Pius Adesanmi mother, Lois Olufunke and the deceased daughter, Iyabo Toluhi have sued Boeing over the tragic Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed the renowned writer.
Boeing is the manufacturer of the ill-fated 737 MAX 8 Ethiopian Airlines aircraft that crashed on March 10 killing all the 157 passengers onboard.
According to Premium Times, the suit which was filed by Norman Husain Law + Associates, Floyd Wisner of The Wisner Law Firm and Omar Khawaja of The Law Offices of Omar Khawaja on behalf of the family dated June 4 is suing Boeing for not properly informing pilots on the dangers and risks around its new Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System(MCAS) software, which led to the crash of the Ethiopian airline plane.
As stated in the suit, the aircraft manufacturer knew MCAS software was defective but it ignored the flaws, thereby compromising the safety of passengers because of profit.
“This action arises from the horrific crash of ETHIOPIAN AIRLINES Flight 302 (“Flight 302”) on March 10, 2019 in which 157 people lost their lives. The aircraft involved in Flight 302 was a Boeing 737 MAX 8,” the suit read.
“This crash came less than five months after Lion Air Flight JT 610 – another Boeing 737 MAX 8 – crashed into the Java Sea on October 29, 2018, killing all 189 onboard.
“Investigation into both crashes is ongoing, but the similarities in the aircraft and the investigative findings for the crashes thus far points to a common cause. Shortly after taking off and while attempting to climb, pilots for both aircraft reported flight control issues as the planes pitched up and down erratically throughout the sky.
“Once again corporate greed has placed profits over safety with tragic consequences for the public,” said Mr Husain, founder and senior partner at Husain Law + Associates, PC.
“Our goal with these lawsuits is to obtain answers for our grieving clients and hold the Boeing Company accountable for creating this tragedy.”
Details of Lawsuit
Detail of the new complaint seen by Premium Times reads in part: “This action arises from the horrific crash of ETHIOPIAN AIRLINES Flight 302 (“Flight 302”) on March 10, 2019 in which 157 people lost their lives. The aircraft involved in Flight 302 was a Boeing 737 MAX 8. This crash came less than five months after Lion Air Flight JT 610 – another Boeing 737 MAX 8 – crashed into the Java Sea on October 29, 2018, killing all 189 onboard.
“Investigation into both crashes is ongoing, but the similarities in the aircraft and the investigative findings for the crashes thus far points to a common cause. Shortly after taking off and while attempting to climb, pilots for both aircraft reported flight control issues as the planes pitched up and down erratically throughout the sky.”
The suit listed the plaintiffs as Lois Olufunke Adesanmi, mother of the late writer, and Iyabo Toluhi, named on behalf of the daughter of the late renown writer, who is a minor. The defendant is THE BOEING COMPANY, a Delaware corporation with its principal place of business in the State of Illinois.
“Once again corporate greed has placed profits over safety with tragic consequences for the public,” said Mr Husain, founder and senior partner at Husain Law + Associates, PC. “Our goal with these lawsuits is to obtain answers for our grieving clients and hold the Boeing Company accountable for creating this tragedy.”
Mr Wisner, from the Wisner Law Firm, stated, “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.”
The complaint further alleges that Boeing’s failure to properly inform pilots of a defect in the MAX 8’s flight control system left pilots without the knowledge or ability to restore manual control and caused both Lion Air Flight 610 and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashes.
It added that Boeing included a new automated flight-control system in the MAX aircraft, the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS) to address the risk of a stall. “However, as BOEING’s CEO has acknowledged MCAS contributed to both the Lion Air and Ethiopian Air crashed,” the suit claimed.
The suit also alleged that Boeing knew MCAS was defective and dangerously flawed, adding that the company ignored safety in its pursuit of profit.
Messrs Husain, Wisner and Khawaja said they are confident the US legal system and the US discovery process will allow families to get the answers they are seeking and sort out what really happened.
