Boeing sued over Ethiopian Airlines crash

Boeing Corporation has been sued on behalf of a passenger killed in last months 737 Max plane crash in Ethiopia and orders for the troubled aircraft wavered in Asia, deepening the planemakers legal and financial woes.Chicago-based Boeing is under intense scrutiny after two crashes since October killed 346 people.As the company finalises a software upgrade for the grounded 737 Max, its fighting to hang onto some customers whose confidence in the best-selling jet has been shaken. Boeing is also facing a criminal probe into how the plane was originally approved to fly.The lawsuit, filed on behalf of the estate of Ethiopian Airlines passenger Jackson Musoni of Rwanda, claims the 737 Max 8 isnt safely designed. The complaint follows earlier suits against the company over an October crash in Indonesia involving the same model. A Boeing spokeswoman declined to comment on Thursdays complaint in a federal court in Chicago.The subject accident occurred because, among other things, Boeing defectively designed a new flight control system for the Boeing 737 Max 8 that automatically and erroneously pushes the aircrafts nose down, and because Boeing failed to warn of the defect, according to the complaint.Flag-carrier airline Garuda Indonesia said its going ahead with plans to cancel a $4.8 billion order for 49 Max 8s. Still, Garuda is sticking with Boeing and has asked the manufacturer for different aircraft. In Vietnam, Bamboo Airways agreed to buy as many as 26 narrow-body jets from Airbus SE, just a month after saying it was considering ordering as many as 25 Boeing 737 Max planes.Kenya Airways Is Talking to Airbus, But Hasnt Discarded BoeingBoeing is preparing to submit final paperwork to U.S. regulators for a software upgrade for an anti-stall countermeasure on the 737 Max that investigators said in a preliminary report repeatedly pushed the nose down on the Max operated by Lion Air. In that case, the jet went into a dive prior to crashing into the Java Sea in October.Authorities are probing whether the system was a factor in the March 10 crash of the Ethiopian Airlines jet, which regulators said behaved similarly to the earlier downed plane.
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