Family sues Boeing over death of couple in Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crash

The family of a couple who died in the Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crash enroute to Nairobi from Addis Ababa has sued the aircraft manufacturer Boeing.

The couple medical doctor, Carlo Spini and his wife Gabriella Viciani a nurse, of the Arezzo Province of Italy, were killed in the crash of the Boeing 737-8 MAX, operated by Ethiopian Airlines on March 10, 2019.

A press release copied to ghanabusinessnews.com by the lawyers says the law firm, Kreindler & Kreindler LLP, along with co-counsel Power Rogers & Smith LLP filed two federal wrongful death lawsuits on May 2 in Chicago, Illinois.

The defendants in the case are Chicago-based Boeing Company and Rosemount Aerospace, Inc. of Minnesota. The lawsuits were filed in the United States District Court for the Northern District of Illinois.

The suit makes a case against Boeing and the Federal Aviation Administration’s failures that caused the crash, including allegations not found in prior lawsuits that Boeing failed to activate an important safety feature in the airplane and that Boeing failed to have its MCAS consider flight variables, such as the airplane’s airspeed and altitude, before triggering and pushing the airplane’s nose down toward the ground, the release said.

It indicated that the victims had been engaged in humanitarian missions in Africa, where they established and oversaw hospitals, medical clinics and orphanages for the local populations, including young orphaned children whose parents succumbed to AIDS and other fatal illnesses.

“Spini, a physician, and Viciani, a nurse, had been traveling to Africa since 2002, when they established a program for the prevention of AIDS and HIV transmission, and treatment of other diseases, in Malawi. Successive projects in the following 16 years until their deaths included the creation and oversight of 11 hospitals and healthcare clinics in Kenya, Malawi, Eritrea, South Sudan, Madagascar and other countries in need. At the time of his death, Spini was President of Africa Tremila, a non-profit based in Bergamo, Italy, which establishes and oversees humanitarian programs in developing countries,” the release said.

The couple are survived by four children, and eight grandchildren.

The Ethiopian Airlines plane crashed killing all 157 passengers on board shortly after take-off from Addis Ababa when the aircraft nose-dived several times before hitting the ground, according to a preliminary report.

The report suggests that the pilots who were commanding the Flight ET 302 on March 10, 2019 followed all the Boeing recommended and FAA approved emergency procedures to handle the most difficult emergency situation created on the airplane, but could not recover.

It was the second crash in the space of less than six months involving a Boeing 737 Max aircraft. In October 2018 a Lion Air flight JT 610 crashed into the sea near Indonesia killing all of the 189 people on board.

All 737 Max 8 aircraft have been grounded after the crash.

A copy of the suit.

By Emmanuel K. Dogbevi

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