Lawyers for crashed Ethiopian airline commence suing Boeing manufacturer

A consortium of law firms led by Irungu Kangata (from left) of Irungu Kangata & Co Advocates, Mohamed Nyaoga of MM Chambers, Carlos Velasquez of VDA Trial Lawyers and Laban Opande of Laban Opande Attorneys & Counselors at Law during the presser at the Intercontinental hotel, Nairobi. [Elvis Ogina/Standard]

A consortium of law firms has commenced the process of suing Boeing, the manufacturer of the Ethiopian Airlines 737 MAX plane that crashed on March 10 killing all 157 people on board.

The law firms include Irungu Kangata and Company Advocates (Kenya), VDA Trial Lawyers (Florida), and Laban Opande Attorneys and Counselors at Law (Texas).

Mr Opande said they had already talked to 10 families, adding that they wanted to consolidate all the cases and file the lawsuit in the US.

The lawyer said they expected hearing of the matter to take between eight months and two years. The families, he said, would not pay any legal fees.

Instead, they would reach an agreement based on a percentage of the compensation awarded.