Boeing settles with man whose family died in 737 MAX crash

Boeing reached a settlement with a Canadian man whose family died in the March 2019 crash of an Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX, the man’s lawyer said on Friday.

The terms of the settlement with Paul Njoroge of Toronto were not released.

The 41-year-old man’s wife Carolyne and three young children — Ryan, 6, Kellie, 4, and nine-month-old Rubi — died in the crash.

His mother-in-law was traveling with them and also died in the crash.

The trial was scheduled to start on Monday in U.S. District Court in Chicago and would have been the first against the U.S. planemaker stemming from two fatal 737 MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that together killed 346 people.

Boeing also averted a trial in April, when it settled with the families of two other victims in the Ethiopian Airlines crash.

The planemaker declined to comment on the latest settlement.

The two accidents led to a 20-month grounding of the company’s best-selling jet and cost Boeing more than $20 billion.

In another trial that is scheduled to begin on November 3, Njoroge’s attorney Robert Clifford will be representing the families of six more victims.

Boeing has settled more than 90% of the civil lawsuits related to the two accidents, paying out billions of dollars in compensation through lawsuits, a deferred prosecution agreement and other payments, according to the company.

Boeing and the U.S. Justice Department asked a judge earlier this month to approve an agreement that allows the company to avoid prosecution, over objections from relatives of some of the victims of the two crashes.

The agreement would enable Boeing to avoid being branded a convicted felon and to escape oversight from an independent monitor for three years.

It was part of a plea deal struck in 2024 to a criminal fraud charge that it misled U.S. regulators about a crucial flight 737 MAX control system which contributed to the crashes.