Thirty-two Kenyan families who lost relatives in the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crash are set to receive a combined $87.36 million, roughly Sh11.3 billion, from Boeing, closing out a legal battle that has stretched nearly seven years.
Each family will receive about $2.73 million, translating to approximately Sh353.3 million, drawn from a $444.5 million victim compensation fund established after Boeing’s settlement with the United States Department of Justice. The fund grew out of a broader agreement reached in 2025, after Boeing was found to have violated an earlier non-prosecution deal with American authorities. Combined with earlier settlements reached during the drawn-out legal process, the total financial recovery for the affected families is estimated at Sh17.3 billion.
Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 crashed on March 10, 2019, just six minutes after taking off from Addis Ababa’s Bole International Airport bound for Nairobi, killing all 157 people on board. Kenya recorded the highest number of victims among the 30 nationalities represented on the flight. Investigators found that a faulty sensor triggered the Boeing 737 MAX 8’s Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, which repeatedly forced the aircraft’s nose down despite the pilots’ efforts to regain control, mirroring the failure behind the earlier Lion Air Flight 610 disaster in Indonesia.
The payout is being handled by Chicago-based Ribbeck Law Chartered, which represents dozens of families across Africa, the Middle East, Asia and the United States affected by the two 737 MAX crashes. While the settlement closes a painful chapter for many, it has also reignited debate locally over the challenges victims face in pursuing justice against foreign companies through courts thousands of kilometres away.