The aircraft manufacturer Boeing agreed to take responsibility for the 737 Max crash in Ethiopia in March 2019 that claimed the lives of 157 people, caused by an aircraft system failure.
According to local media reports, Boeing’s attorneys on Wednesday filed a petition in federal court in Chicago, in which the whole process to settle several complaints.
“The defendant, Boeing, admitted that an aircraft that was in an unsafe condition made Ethiopian Airlines Flight 203 the immediate cause of compensation for damage caused by the accident,” the court document said.
Boeing further clarified that the pilots were not to blame for the crash, and exonerated two of Max’s suppliers involved in the production of the failed aircraft.
The motion also included a binding agreement, signed by all but two of the families affected by the crash.
The binding agreement states that compensatory damages for each individual complaint will be decided by a mediation body or court in the state of Illinois, where Boeing is headquartered.
The company also pledges not to force families residing outside the United States, many of them in Africa, to seek redress in their own countries, as they would likely be much lower.
In a statement, Boeing said the agreement “allows the parties to focus their efforts on determining the appropriate compensation for each family.”
The crash in Ethiopia came months after another crash of the 737 Max in Indonesia, both caused by a failure of the model’s new navigation system.
Both crashes led to authorities banning the use of the 737 Max for about 20 months, which cost Boeing billions of dollars.
Last January, Boeing had already reached an agreement with the United States Department of Justice for which it pledged to pay $ 2.5 billion in a case involving its 737 Max in which the airline was accused of trying to defraud the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).