Some family members and the lead counsel of the Boeing crash in Ethiopia react to the latest shocking news of 100 internal memos regarding the building of the MAX8 that has been accused of being rushed into production and then later resulted in two crashes within five months killing 346 innocent people. The plane remains grounded worldwide as Congress conducts an investigation into the FAA certification process of the jet. That investigation revealed 100 internal memos that Boeing, manufacturer of the plane, that have sickened and horrified family members due to their cavalier treatment about problems with the plane.
Robert A. Clifford, lead counsel in the Boeing crash of flight ET302 that crashed March 10 in Ethiopia representing more than 67 people worldwide, said:
“The civil lawsuits have begun the necessary task of reviewing millions of pages of documents related to decisions that were made in allowing this plane to fly, particularly after the first crash on Oct. 29, 2018, in the Java Sea after takeoff from Indonesia. Without the power of congressional subpoena, it is questionable whether Boeing ever would have turned over these critical internal memos of Boeing employees involved in the manufacture and self-certification of the 737 MAX8. In the litigation pending in federal court in Chicago, Boeing is attempting to prevent families from receiving the materials released yesterday to Congress on the premise that the information is not relevant to the claims in the lawsuits. Safety is always relevant to the public and the victims’ families. Boeing should come forward with full transparency of what they knew about the cause of the Lion Air and Ethiopian crashes, when they knew that information, and what they did or did not do to prevent them.
“A review of the memos indicates that Boeing employees knew of the major problems with the aircraft, but the culture at Boeing, the lack of concern for safety at that company, prevented employees from standing up and reporting them to people there that could have changed the lives of so many families. One employee even admitted to a colleague that the employee would never put his family on the MAX8, yet the allowed others to suffer unnecessary and preventable deaths. That type of responsibility goes straight to the top. Excuses here will not be heard. Leadership needs to know what is going on, especially when lives are at stake, and lack of knowledge is never acceptable, and, in fact, leads to reckless behavior that cannot be tolerated.
“I am so sorry that the families must continue to endure the callousness, insensitivity and cold-heartedness by Boeing, from top to bottom. How employees can reach such a lack of concern for human life is beyond cold-heartedness and at the appropriate time, a jury will decide how to punish a company through punitive damages for conduct that goes far beyond negligence.”
-Robert A. Clifford, Founder and Senior Partner, Clifford Law Offices, Chicago, IL
Family members also react to this sorrowful news about the internal memos:
Chris Moore of Toronto Canada, father of Danielle Moore, 24, killed in the Boeing ET302 crash:
“We spent an agonizing night thinking about these comments. I was ruminating how the FAA must have been the butt of the joke because of their ineffectiveness in oversight. I can’t believe that this was not typical water-cooler discussions and running joke about the FAA. This staff are in the very organization whose lobbyists plied the government to reduce the FAA from a system of oversight to one that overlooks.
“Danielle and 345 others paid for this joke dearly and the families lie in the wake of the punchline. For the safety of the flying public, we cannot just wait for the Department of Justice to charge individuals; presumably these jokers (and not just the ones in the article), are still working in the industry. All aviation professional associations need to investigate and strip any professional accreditation from those who do not care about the safety of the flying public.”
Nadia Milleron, mother of Samya Rose Stumo, 24, of Massachusetts who also was killed in the Boeing ET 302 crash, said:
“Boeing is not in a position to hide anything. In order to regain public trust, they have to be completely transparent with Congress, with the public and also in the litigation process, which will help us understand why our loved ones died and who was responsible. The internal Boeing memos just reinforce the impression that they don’t really care about whether passengers live or die; they care about protecting their own company. But every time they block access to knowledge of the process that killed our loved ones, they hurt us all over again. By blocking our efforts for aviation safety, they are saying we do not care about what happened and we don’t care about protecting people in the future. Boeing could help us feel purpose in our terrible grief if they worked hand in hand to reveal EVERYTHING that happened and prevent tragedies from happening again.”
Michael Stumo, father of Samya Rose Stumo, stated:
“These revelations sicken me. The culture of Boeing has eroded horribly. My daughter is dead as a result. The FAA should revoke Boeing’s ODA (organization designation authority which allows trusted manufacturers to self-regulate safety) because the company cannot be trusted to self-regulate.”
For further information or to speak to Robert Clifford, please contact Clifford Law Offices Communications Partner Pamela Sakowicz Menaker at 847-721-0909 (cell).