Boeing to pay $36M to family of Indian woman killed in Ethiopia Air crash

By Jonathan Bilyk | Legal Newsline
The Center Square

The family of a woman from India who died in a 2019 airliner crash could receive nearly $35 million from Boeing, under a jury verdict and negotiated settlement with aircraft maker Boeing.

On Nov. 11, a federal jury in Chicago awarded nearly $28.5 million to the family of Shikha Garg.

However, under a settlement reached near the conclusion of the trial, Garg’s family will receive more than $35 million, which would include the verdict amount, plus 26% “prejudgment” interest, according to a statement from the Garg family’s attorneys with the firm of Kline & Specter, of Philadelphia.

The Garg family was also represented in the action by attorneys from the firm of Power Rogers, of Chicago, with assistance from the Chicago firm of Clifford Law.

Garg was among 156 people who died when Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed shortly after takeoff en route from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, to Nairobi, Kenya, in March 2019.

According to court documents, Garg was 32 years old at the time of the crash. She was a citizen of India, who had been married three months at the time of her death.

According to court documents and statements from her attorneys, Garg was working as a developmental program consultant for the United Nations at the time. She was also identified as a PhD candidate.

According to court documents, Garg was traveling at the time of the crash to an annual conference of the U.S. Environment Assembly in Nairobi.

Garg’s family’s lawsuit was among dozens that have been filed against Boeing stemming from the crash, which came amid a spate of litigation against the Chicago-based aircraft maker over two aircraft crashes involving the Boeing 737 Max 8 airliner.

In addition to the Ethiopian Air crash, Boeing also has been hit with lawsuits from the families of those who died in the crash of Lion Air Flight 610 in 2018 in Indonesia.

Both crashes combined resulted in 346 deaths.

According to published reports, Boeing has paid out billions of dollars to date to the families of the crash victims, and to settle a regulatory action brought by the U.S. government.

All of the legal actions center on claims that Boeing had designed the 737 Max crafts with faulty control systems which reportedly supplied bad sensor data, forcing the nose of the aircraft down and leading to crashes and other incidents.

Boeing grounded its fleet of 737 Max airliners from 2019-2020 and again in 2024 to address the reported problems.

Garg’s case was among four scheduled to go to trial this month.

However, as juries were being empaneled, Boeing reportedly reached a confidential settlement with three families, according to a release from Clifford Law.

Those included:

– Mercy Ngami Ndivo, 28, of Kenya, who was the mother of a young daughter;

– Abdul Jalil Qaid Ghazi Hussein, 38, of Yemen, who reportedly was a “successful” married father of seven children; and

– Nasrudin Muhammad, 30, of the United Kingdom and Kenya, who reportedly was the married father of four children and a “successful businessman.”

All of those settlements are confidential, according to attorneys.

Clifford Law said seven cases remain to be resolved.

In Garg’s case, the jury awarded compensatory damages, including $10 million for Garg’s “pain, suffering and emotional distress;” and a combined $18.45 million to Garg’s husband, Soumya Bhattacharya for his losses, as well as his “grief, sorrow and mental suffering.”

Under the deal with Boeing, the company did not admit liability and punitive damages were not allowed, according to Garg’s attorneys.

Following the verdict, Garg’s attorneys, Shanin Specter and Elizabeth Crawford, of Kline & Specter, released a joint statement, saying: “We and the family are gratified by the jury’s verdict. It provides public accountability for Boeing’s wrongful conduct.”