Manant Vaidya, a Canadian national, has sought compensation for the loss of his relatives – his parents Pannagesh (73) and Hansini Vaidya (67), and his sister Kosha Vaidya (37). He also lost his brother-in-law and two nieces in the crash.
New Delhi: A US federal court has begun hearing a damages case filed by an Indian-origin man against the aircraft maker Boeing over the 2019 Ethiopian Airlines aircraft crash in which he lost six of his family members.
A total of 157 people died in the crash in which a Boeing 737 MAX8 aircraft headed for Kenya crashed shortly after takeoff from Addis Ababa Bole International Airport in Ethiopia on March 10, 2019.
In the first civil trial in the case – centred on the death of Shikha Garg, a United Nations consultant – the federal court jury awarded over $28 million to her family. This is understood to be the second.
Manant Vaidya, a Canadian national, has sought compensation for the loss of his relatives – his parents Pannagesh (73) and Hansini Vaidya (67), and his sister Kosha Vaidya (37).
Kosha’s 45-year-old husband Prerit, their two daughters who were 14 and 13 years old respectively, had also been aboard the flight. Relatives of Prerit and his daughters had filed a separate lawsuit which Boeing settled out of court in 2025, reports say.
Reports in 2019 had said that the family were travelling to Kenya so the children could see where their mother had been born. A New York Times report had quoted Manant as having said that his family were “typical first-generation Indian immigrants.”
Manant had said then that the children were “brilliant in academics” – one was a talented singer and the other loved traditional Indian dance and computers.
“This family has waited nearly seven years to see justice, and that is our goal in this trial,” Manant’s lawyer Robert Clifford has said in an update published on the law firm’s pages.
US District Court Judge Alonso will hear the case in the Dirksen Federal Building in Chicago. Trial is predicted to continue for around 10 days.
On June 12, 2025, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner operated by Air India headed from Ahmedabad to London Gatwick, crashed soon after takeoff from Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel International Airport. All but one of the 242 passengers and crew members died, along with those in and around the building that the plane crashed into – taking the total toll to 270.
This article went live on January thirteenth, two thousand twenty six, at three minutes past one in the afternoon.
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