Seven years after Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 plunged into a field outside Addis Ababa, 32 Kenyan families are finally set to receive compensation from a fund established following Boeing’s settlement with the United States Department of Justice.
Each family will receive about $2.73 million, translating to roughly Sh353.3 million, bringing the total payout to Kenyan households to approximately $87.36 million, or Sh11.3 billion. 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.
The money comes from a $444.5 million victim compensation fund set up after Boeing was found to have violated an earlier non-prosecution agreement with US authorities. The fund itself grew out of Boeing’s broader 2025 settlement with the Department of Justice, rather than a standalone gesture by the manufacturer.
Flight 302 crashed on March 10, 2019, just six minutes after leaving Addis Ababa’s Bole International Airport for Nairobi. All 157 people aboard the Boeing 737 MAX 8 died, with Kenya recording the highest number of fatalities of any nationality on the flight. Investigators later found that a faulty sensor had triggered the aircraft’s Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System, repeatedly forcing the plane’s nose down as pilots fought to regain control.
The disaster came less than five months after a Lion Air 737 MAX crashed into the Java Sea in October 2018, killing 189 people. Together, the two crashes led to a worldwide grounding of the 737 MAX fleet and forced extensive changes to how the aircraft was certified and flown.
Kenyan families secured legal standing as crime victims in the US justice system after prosecutors accused Boeing of misleading regulators during the MAX’s certification. American product liability law also allowed relatives to pursue Boeing directly in federal courts in Chicago.
The payouts have varied widely depending on when and how each family settled. The first Kenyan family to reach an agreement, back in December 2020, received about $3 million. Families that pushed their cases to trial in recent months have fared even better — the family of American aid worker Samya Stumo won a $49.5 million jury verdict in May 2026, while the family of UN consultant Shikha Garg settled for $35.85 million after a jury awarded over $28 million.
For the Kenyan families, the settlement closes a painful chapter, though it has also reignited debate locally over the difficulty of seeking justice for victims of disasters involving foreign companies and courts thousands of kilometres away.
