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Boeing will appear before a federal court in Chicago on Monday to face a lawsuit over a deadly 737 MAX crash in Ethiopia, which was filed by the family of a young American NGO worker, Samya Stumo.
The NGO worker was killed in the March 2019 Ethiopian Airlines crash, when she was en route to Kenya for her first assignment with ThinkWell, a public health NGO that aimed to increase access to health care in Africa and Asia.
The plane she boarded descended shortly after taking off from Addis Ababa, killing everyone aboard. There was a Lion Air crash about four months before the Ethiopian crash. According to AFP, the two crashes claimed 346 lives in total. The disasters led to congressional hearings, with irate lawmakers demanding answers, and to leadership shake-ups at the aviation company.
Boeing, the plane maker, acknowledged that anti-stall software was implicated in both accidents. It initially faced 155 civil cases alleging wrongful death and negligence, among other claims, but has since settled the vast majority of them.
Stumo’s case and other cases that have gone to trial are intended to determine the financial compensation due to the victims’ relatives rather than to determine criminal liability.
The 737 MAX crashes marked the start of a long downturn at Boeing, resulting in annual losses from 2018 to 2024. A Chicago jury awarded $28.45 million in November 2025 to the widower of Shikha Garg of New Delhi, who died in the Ethiopian crash.
Since the air crash that killed Stumo, her parents have become vocal critics of Boeing and have advocated for stricter government oversight of aviation safety.
Stumo’s mother, Nadia Milleron, a niece of consumer advocate and former presidential candidate Ralph Nader, is running for Congress.
Her father, Michael Stumo, works on economic policy for the Office of Management and Budget after previously leading the Coalition for a Prosperous America, an advocacy group representing US manufacturers and producers.
