It has emerged this week that Boeing has settled a lawsuit regarding the crash of Spanair flight 5022 in Madrid 15 years ago.
In that time, Brent Coon – a legal firm, has been working to acquire compensation from the American planemaker.
Without further ado, let’s get into it…
Spanair Flight 5022 – Crashed in Madrid…
Spanair Flight 5022 was a routine scheduled flight between Barcelona and Gran Canaria via Madrid.
The aircraft in question was EC-HFP, a 14.8 year old McDonnell Douglas MD-82 that originally started out life with Korean Air in November 1993.
As per data from Planespotters.net, it remained with the Korean carrier until being delivered to Spanair in July 1989.
It remained with the airline until the unfortunate accident that took place on August 20, 2008.
The aircraft crashed at Madrid on take-off having stalled due to incorrect flap settings.
It took the lives of six crew members and 148 passengers onboard the aircraft, with 18 survivors.
Justice & Compensation Acquired…
Brent Coon, the legal firm representing, argued that Boeing was at fault for this crash involving the Spanair aircraft.
Brent Coon argued that the American planemaker was aware of a mechanical defect on the plane.
With that defect, the manufacturer failed to apply a fix to it, showing cause and liability to the planemaker.
Eventually, the law firm was able to get it through the Civil Courts in Spain, with Boeing settling.
The firm said the following in a statement regarding the settlement of the crash in Madrid:
“We have been fighting the good fight for these victims and their families for well over a decade.”
“It has been extraordinarily frustrating to see Boeing dodging accountability for so long, and to succeed in convincing our own judiciary that the victims would get a swift and fair trial in Spain.”
“They knew that wasn’t going to be the case, and showed their true colors once they obtained the rulings throwing everything back into the laps of the Spanish courts, which rarely deal with this type of complex litigation.”
“We weren’t surprised to see them undertake multiple protracted appeals of the trial court rulings to further delay the matter and wear down these families, who were already devastated by the loss of their loved ones and impatient to ride out appeal after appeal.”
“But we have weathered all the storms and got a definitive trial date. This positioned us to negotiate a fair settlement of our claims and these families can finally have closure.”
“Spanish government oversight of the airline industry is frankly pretty weak or this would likely not have been allowed to happen in the first place,”
Overall…
In conclusion, the families of those who perished, as well as the survivors have got the justice they have been seeking for 15 years.
It is understood the plaintiffs are getting the maximum amount they would have been awarded by the courts as well.
The amounts have been left as undisclosed to the public, but this will no doubt provide some level of closure.
For now, let’s see if anything else comes from this, or whether this matter is considered closed.
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