Chicago Jury Awards $29 Million to Widow of UN Engineer Killed in Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 Crash
After trial: No post-trial motion or notice of appeal had been reported as of early October 2026. We could not confirm whether the judgment has been paid.
Won by Podhurst Orseck PA.
A federal jury in Chicago awarded $29 million in August 2026 to Naoise Connolly Ryan, the widow of Micheal Ryan, a 39-year-old Irish engineer with the UN World Food Programme. He died on March 10, 2019, when Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302, a Boeing 737 MAX 8, crashed minutes after takeoff. Boeing had accepted responsibility, so the trial addressed damages only.
What happened
Micheal Ryan, known as Mick, was 39 and from County Clare, Ireland, when he boarded Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in Addis Ababa on March 10, 2019. He was deputy chief engineer at the United Nations World Food Programme, and had worked in humanitarian emergencies in Liberia during the Ebola crisis, Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Ethiopia, and with Rohingya refugees. Six of his UN colleagues were on the same flight.
The plane was a Boeing 737 MAX 8. It went down about six minutes after takeoff, killing all 157 people aboard. The crash came five months after a Lion Air 737 MAX crashed in Indonesia, and investigators tied both accidents to a flight-control system that repeatedly forced the nose of the aircraft downward. Boeing has acknowledged that problems with the anti-stall software contributed to the two crashes, which killed 346 people in total.
Most of the families who sued Boeing settled their claims confidentially. Ryan's widow, Naoise Connolly Ryan, did not, and her case went to trial in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois in Chicago. Because Boeing had accepted responsibility for the crash, the jury was not asked to decide fault. Its task was to decide what the loss of Mick Ryan was worth to his family.
Steven Marks of Podhurst Orseck represented the family. The trial began on Aug. 5, 2026. On Aug. 12, the jury returned a verdict of $29 million for Connolly Ryan. Marks said no financial award can replace a life or undo the loss the family has endured, and that the family was grateful the jury had weighed the evidence carefully.
Connolly Ryan spoke after the verdict. 'We got justice, but we are still walking out of the courtroom without Mick,' she said. She described Boeing's acceptance of responsibility as a vindication, particularly after the federal criminal case against the company in Texas was dismissed in November 2025. Families of the victims are pursuing a separate mandamus petition aimed at reversing that dismissal.
Boeing said it is deeply sorry to everyone who lost loved ones on both flights. It also said it has resolved nearly all of the related claims through settlements and respects the right of families to pursue their cases in court. Ryan's was the third Flight 302 damages trial in Chicago, after earlier juries awarded verdicts to the families of Shikha Garg and Samya Stumo.
As of early October 2026, no post-trial motion or notice of appeal had been reported.
Sources
This account is drawn from contemporaneous public reporting and the court record.
- 1.Tribune News Service via Butler Eagle, 'Jury awards $29 million to family of another Max crash victim', Aug. 16, 2026·Archived copy
- 2.Reuters via 24 News HD, 'US jury awards $29 mn damages to Boeing 737 MAX victim's family', Aug. 13, 2026·Archived copy
- 3.Travel Radar, 'Boeing to pay $29M in damages to crash victim's widow', Aug. 2026·Archived copy
- 4.RTE News, '$29m for Irish crash victim's family important justice', Aug. 13, 2026·Archived copy
- 5.Irish Examiner, 'Vindication for Mick Ryan's family as Boeing found liable for 2019 crash', 2026·Archived copy
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