Jury Grants $28 Million to Family of UN Consultant in Boeing Crash

A jury in federal court has awarded the family of Shikha Garg, a United Nations consultant, more than $28 million in damages after she tragically died in the crash of a Boeing jet in Ethiopia over six years ago.

The decision came after just two hours of jury deliberations, concluding a trial that lasted a week in Chicago, Boeing's former headquarters location. This marked the first civil trial related to the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 disaster occurring in March 2019.

Shanin Specter and Elizabeth Crawford, the family’s legal representatives, expressed satisfaction with the jury's decision, emphasizing it as a form of public acknowledgment of Boeing's negligent actions.

Additionally, Boeing agreed to an out-of-court settlement with Garg’s husband, Soumya Bhattacharya, amounting to $3.45 million. Including a 26% interest, the total payment from Boeing to Garg’s family reaches $35.8 million.

Most wrongful death suits related to this crash and another in Indonesia have been settled before the trial, though the terms remain undisclosed. Only a few cases are still pending.

Boeing issued an apology to the victims’ families and acknowledged their right to pursue litigation.

The jury focused on compensation claims around financial loss and emotional distress for Garg’s family since Boeing had already admitted fault in the crash.

Shikha Garg was en route to a U.N. environmental meeting in Kenya when she perished. As a young Indian PhD candidate, her life was painted by her attorney during the trial as one full of promise, having recently married and dressed in traditional attire with flower garlands on the ill-fated flight.

The crash occurred shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa, and it was described as both avoidable and tragic by Specter.

Dan Webb, representing Boeing, urged the jury to focus on what he termed fair compensation, particularly contesting any claims that passengers were conscious of pain prior to impact, suggesting that death occurred too swiftly for physical suffering to have been experienced.

The jury awarded Garg’s family $10 million for her 'pain and suffering and emotional distress' before the crash, as outlined by the family’s legal counsel.

The Ethiopian Airlines pilots quickly faced malfunctions after departure, battling multiple warning signals as the aircraft plunged at almost 700 miles per hour.

The global fleet of Max jets was grounded shortly after the incidents, and while flights resumed by December 2020, restrictions in certain countries, like Indonesia, persisted until later.

In a concurrently running legal matter, a Texas judge dismissed a prolonged criminal case against Boeing at the Justice Department's behest. This agreement means Boeing would contribute $1.1 billion more in fines and other payments related to this and other compensations.

Prosecutors accused Boeing of conspiracy and misleading regulatory bodies about the 737 Max's flight-control software—a defect contributing to two crashes. In the aftermath, both incidents shed light on systemic faults linked to a single sensor's erroneous data input.

A report revealed Boeing failed to rectify known defects, allowing the FAA to mistakenly certify the aircraft as safe, despite existing standards demonstrating otherwise, leading to a significant distrust in the certification approach.

The report criticized the FAA for its inability to protect airline passengers effectively, pointing to deep-rooted issues on safety oversight.