A lawsuit against Boeing Co has been filed in a U.S. federal court in what appeared to be the first suit over a March 10 Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX crash that killed 157 people.
The lawsuit was filed in Chicago federal court by the family of Jackson Musoni, a citizen of Rwanda, and alleges that Boeing, which manufactures the 737 MAX, had defectively designed the automated flight control system.
The complaint was filed by Musoni’s three minor children, who are Dutch citizens residing in Belgium.
Boeing did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.
The 737 MAX planes were grounded worldwide following the Ethiopian Airlines disaster, which came five months after a Lion Air crash in Indonesia that killed 189 people.
Boeing said on Wednesday it had reprogrammed software on its 737 MAXto prevent erroneous data from triggering an anti-stall system that is facing mounting scrutiny in the wake of two deadly nose-down crashes in the past five months.