Chicago, IL, Dec. 02, 2020 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Boeing and American Airlines will be hosting a 737 MAX 8 marketing event on Wednesday, December 2, 2020, that involves flying reporters and videographers on the aircraft. The MAX fleet was grounded for 20 months following two crashes of the dangerous plane that killed 346 people in two separate crashes within five months. Reporters will be flown round trip from Dallas, Texas, to Tulsa, Oklahoma, during this marketing event.
Robert A. Clifford, founder and senior partner at Clifford Law Offices, was appointed Lead Counsel in the litigation against Boeing in federal district court in Chicago.
Families of victims of the Boeing 737 MAX crash in Ethiopia in March 2019, reacted swiftly to Boeing and American Airlines’ media blitz which follows last week’s re-certification of the plane by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
Michael Stumo, father of 24-year-old Samya Rose Stumo of Massachusetts who was killed in the second crash shortly after takeoff in Ethiopia, said, “Many comments were received by FAA from engineers, pilots and aviation organizations that there are still problems to fix on the MAX. The promotional flight is arranged by the American Airlines marketing team simply because the company made the mistake of buying more MAX aircraft than almost any other airline. Passengers should avoid this aircraft because others are safer."
Chris Moore of Toronto, Canada, who lost his 24-year-old daughter Danielle in the crash, said, “There are several questions that need to be asked: Is the MAX safer than the 737 NG (Next Generation), the predecessor of the MAX? Is it 'safe' only because it meets the regulations that grandfathers approval of hazards and antiquated systems? What would a third crash do to this fleet? For the aviation industry? What does accountability look like if there's a third designer-related crash?”
Javier de Luis of Massachusetts, who lost his sister Graziella de Luis y Ponce, is an aerospace engineer lecturing at MIT. He stated: “This is not how you ensure that an aircraft is safe. You do it by doing the hard work and analyses needed to demonstrate to independent reviewers that your design is safe. But that is hard, and doing stunts is easy. The return to flight effort has been run by exactly the same players that designed and certified the original aircraft which crashed twice. The MAX still does not have sufficient redundancy of prone-to-fail sensors and the FAA has refused our requests to see the technical data and assessments on how they claim to have fixed the aircraft.”
Ike Riffel of California who lost both his sons, Melvin and Bennett, said, “The 737 MAX is a flawed airplane. The airplane is aerodynamically unstable due to the placement of the larger engines. Instead of fixing the problem, Boeing decided to compensate for this defect by adding software to the flight control system that would take control away from the pilots and hopefully stabilize the airplane. The pilots had no training on how to deal with a failure of this system or even any knowledge that the system existed at all. Needlessly 346 people's lives were cut short — mothers, fathers, children, entire families lost because Boeing tried to patch an unstable airframe with software. In a rush to get this plane certified, Boeing hid this patch from the regulators, the airlines, the pilots, and the public even though they knew that there were flaws in the system. The two 737 Max air disasters were not accidents — they were the result of a calculated gamble that Boeing took on the flying public and we all lost. The 346 passengers and crew lost, the family and friends of the victims lost, the flying public lost all because of Boeing’s rush to certify a defective plane. These disasters were preventable, but Boeing decided to put profit over safety. Please do not let this happen again. No families should ever have to go through this hell. This plane is inherently unstable and should never have been certified until it can be made safe without the aid of flight control software. What is Boeing not telling us now? Do not let this monster out of its cage again.”
Stumo, de Luis, Moore and the Riffels are represented by Clifford Law Offices.
The first crash of the Boeing 737 MAX occurred in October 2018, shortly after takeoff off the coast of Indonesia killing all 189 on board. It was allowed to continue to fly until the second crash occurred on March 10, 2019, shortly after takeoff from Ethiopia, killing all 159 on board. The MAX fleet was grounded worldwide a few days later until last week when the FAA allowed the plane to fly again.
For more information, please contact Clifford Law Offices Communications Partner Pamela Sakowicz Menaker at 847-721-0909 (cell).