Chicago Jury Awards $37.1 Million to Family of UN Engineer Killed in 2019 Crash

A Chicago jury awarded $37.1 million to Naoise Connolly Ryan, the spouse of Michael “Mick” Ryan, a UN World Food Programme engineer who perished in the Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX crash of 2019 that killed all 157 passengers. Ryan, 39 at the time, had contributed to humanitarian missions in Liberia during the Ebola crisis and assisted Rohingya refugees, with a UN memorial also highlighting his work in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Ethiopia.

The lawsuit targeted Boeing, the aircraft manufacturer, and comes as one of the last unresolved civil cases linked to the two fatal MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019. Most other claims have been settled out of court on undisclosed terms, but Ryan’s attorney stressed a desire for a jury-determined judgment rather than a private settlement. Boeing has expressed remorse for the crashes and acknowledged that anti-stall software played a role, though it has not commented on the recent award. Earlier in May, another Chicago jury awarded $49.5 million to the family of Samya Stumo, also killed on the same flight.