Boeing Reaches Settlement with Canadian Man Ahead of Trial Over 737 MAX Crash

Chicago/Toronto, July 11 — Boeing has reached a confidential settlement with Paul Njoroge, a Toronto-based man who lost his entire family in the March 2019 crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 involving a Boeing 737 MAX aircraft. The settlement was confirmed by Njoroge’s legal counsel on Friday, just days before the case was set to proceed to trial in the U.S. District Court in Chicago.

The terms of the agreement were not disclosed. Njoroge, 41, lost his wife Carolyne, their three young children — Ryan (6), Kellie (4), and nine-month-old Rubi — as well as his mother-in-law in the tragic accident that claimed 157 lives. The flight, operating from Addis Ababa to Nairobi, was the second of two fatal crashes involving the 737 MAX model, following a similar disaster in Indonesia in 2018. Together, the two crashes resulted in 346 deaths and led to the global grounding of the aircraft for 20 months.

The trial, which was scheduled to begin Monday, would have marked the first courtroom proceeding against the U.S. aerospace giant related to the 737 MAX tragedies. Boeing previously averted a similar trial in April by settling with the families of two other Ethiopian Airlines victims.

The company declined to comment on the latest settlement.

Njoroge’s attorney, Robert Clifford, is also representing families of six additional victims in a separate trial scheduled for November 3. According to Clifford and public court records, Boeing has resolved more than 90% of the civil lawsuits filed in the aftermath of the two disasters, paying billions in settlements through civil claims, a deferred prosecution agreement, and other compensatory mechanisms.

Earlier this month, Boeing and the U.S. Department of Justice jointly requested judicial approval for a controversial plea agreement that would allow the company to avoid prosecution for criminal fraud. The proposed deal, struck in 2024, stems from allegations that Boeing misled regulators about a critical flight control system—the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS)—which was later identified as a key factor in both crashes.

If approved, the agreement would shield Boeing from a felony conviction and oversight by an independent compliance monitor for three years—terms that have drawn strong opposition from families of victims.

The Ethiopian Airlines crash remains one of the most tragic chapters in recent aviation history, and Boeing continues to face legal, regulatory, and reputational fallout more than six years later.