This archive report was first published on 12 September 2019.
John Quindos Karanja, a 61-year-old man from Nakuru County, is preparing to travel to the United States to testify in a compensation case against Boeing following the deaths of his five relatives in the Ethiopian Airlines plane crash on March 10.
According to Karanja, he received confirmation from his law firm that he should be ready to travel ahead of the hearing in early October.
He will be accompanied by his three children, who are also expected to give their testimonies.
The exact hearing date was not disclosed to Karanja, but the firm mentioned early October.
On March 10, Karanja's wife Ann Wangui, daughter Caroline, and grandchildren Ryan Njoroge (seven), Kelly Paul (five), and Ruby Paul (nine months) were among the 157 people who died when the ET302 plane crashed at Bishoftu, formerly known as Debre-Zeit.
The plane was destined for Nairobi and had taken off from Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa just six minutes before the crash.
On July 10, Karanja's son-in-law Paul Njoroge testified to the congress as the first Kenya victim of the crash, slamming the manufacturer and calling for scrutiny of the Federal Aviation Administration, which approved the now-grounded planes two years ago.
The crashes of the Boeing 737 Max aircraft in Ethiopia and Indonesia in 2018 and 2019, respectively, have prompted aviation officials around the world to ground the jets. Investigators have implicated an anti-stall system in both crashes.
Boeing has developed a fix for the software to make it less aggressive and give pilots greater control of the aircraft, but regulators have not said when they will allow the planes to fly again.
