Air India AI171 plane crash victims’ families to file suit in US? Lawyer Mike Andrews says ‘because the plane…’

Air India plane crash: US based law firm Beasley Allen’s lead lawyer Mike Andrews said that since the aircraft involved in the Ahmedabad plane crash, a Boeing Dreamliner, was manufactured in the United States, the “families, the victims, have a voice in those claims in the US.”

“Potential legal options will depend on what the flight data recorder and the cockpit voice recorder reveal in terms of what happened here,” said Andrews, reported ANI.

Families of 65 victims of the deadly Air India Flight AI-171’s deadly crash, which killed a total of 241 people on bord, have hired Beasley Allen, the same team that fought for families in the Boeing 737 MAX tragedies, to take on Boeing and Air India in court, reported Hindustan Times.

According to Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau (AAIB)’s report on the Air India plane crash, voice recordings from the cockpit revealed confusion in fuel cutoffwith a MAYDAY distress call issued moments before the crash.

Beasley Allen and Boeing 737 MAX cases

Beasley Allen rose to prominence through its work on the Boeing 737 MAX cases, which stemmed from two deadly crashes—Lion Air Flight 610 in Indonesia and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in Ethiopia—that claimed 346 lives between 2018 and 2019.

In 2021, Boeing agreed to a $2.5 billion deferred prosecution settlement, which included a $243.6 million criminal fine, $1.77 billion in payments to airlines, and $500 million for victims’ families, as per records by US Department of Justice.

Investigations revealed that Boeing’s retrofitting of the 737 design to compete with Airbus led to significant design flaws, including the Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS).