Chicago-based airplane manufacturer Boeing has been blamed for the crash of a Lion Air flight in the Java Sea that killed all 189 people aboard on October 29, 2018. A wrongful death lawsuit, in the name of deceased passenger, Sudibyo Onggo Wardoyo, 40, of Jakarta, Indonesia, was filed in Cook County on December 24, 2018 on behalf of his parents and three siblings.
The wrongful death suit alleges that the sensors on Boeing’s 737 MAX provided inaccurate data to its flight control system, causing its anti-stall system to improperly engage, leading the plane to crash after taking off from Jakarta on that fateful day. The suit also claims that Boeing failed to provide adequate instructions to pilots on how to respond to and disengage the anti-stall system.
Black box flight data indicated that the anti-stall system, “designed to keep a plane from flying up at too high an angle, repeatedly forced the nose of the plane down while pilots were trying to keep it up.” A similar problem happened on the plane’s previous flight before the crash, but pilots were able to overcome the problem, according to Indonesia’s National Transportation Safety Committee. According to the lawsuit, Boeing was aware of the problem and allowed the aircraft continue flying.
Disaster in the Air
Approximately thirteen minutes after taking off from Jakarta on October 29, Lion Air Flight 610 simply vanished from radar crashing into waters off the northern coast of Java Island. Since the horrifying accident, 30 relatives of the crash victims have filed lawsuits against Boeing, alleging that faults with the new model 737 MAX led to the death of their loved ones.
While a final crash report will not be ready until the end of 2019, a preliminary crash report from Indonesia’s transport safety agency suggested that pilots struggled to control the plane’s anti-stalling system immediately before the crash. Boeing responded to this report by saying that when this happened on a flight previous to the deadly one at the end of October, pilots were able to successfully and safely land the plane when erroneous data was given to the pilots. In its statement, a Boeing spokesperson said, “The 737 MAX is as safe as any airplane that has ever flown the skies.”
Catastrophic Events
While airplane crashes are rare, when they do occur, they’re almost always catastrophic leaving hundreds of people dead or gravely wounded. Aviation accidents are complex and often require a team of legal and aviation experts to investigate possible causes of the accident and determine responsible parties, as there are often several entities that may be legally liable for the air disaster. Large-scale aviation tragedies often involve multiple defendants, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB), the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), independent investigators, commercial airline carriers, and aircraft manufacturers.
Air crash litigation and many complicated (and varied) state, federal, and international laws make these cases extremely difficult. Due to the catastrophic nature of aviation accidents, emotional trauma experienced by survivors and the loved ones of those who perished is extraordinarily great. Only a highly trained aviation accident legal team with experience in these complex cases can fight for the justice and compensation victims deserve.