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Families of 10 on-ground victims of AI-171 crash also engage US law firm
Andrews who was recently in Ahmedabad said the firm was representing families of 80 victims of the AI-171 plane crash including 10 ground victims
Ahmedabad: Families of 10 ground victims killed in the Air India Flight AI-171 crash on June 12 have engaged Beasley Allen, a prominent US aviation law firm that represented families in the Boeing 737 MAX disasters, to pursue legal action.
The firm, led by aviation attorney D Michael Andrews, is exploring product liability claims against Boeing in US federal courts and Montreal Convention claims against Air India in UK courts, though no lawsuits have been filed yet.
“We are presently representing families of 80 victims of the plane crash. They include families of 10 victims who died on the ground due to the crash,” said Andrews who was in Ahmedabad recently. Among them are families which lost medical students who were on the campus at the time of the crash, a man going on a scooter with his wife and two persons who were killed in the medical college hostel’s food preparation area, he said, declining to identify his clients by name.
A relative of Gujarati film producer Maheshbhai Kalavadia (Jirawala) said the family retained the firm on August 11 after meeting Andrews in Ahmedabad, who had travelled to India to meet families of victims in Ahmedabad, Vadodara, Surat, Diu and Mumbai.
“These were innocent people who had nothing to do with the flight - they weren’t even passengers,” said the relative who interacted with Andrews in Ahmedabad.
“They were just going about their normal day when this tragedy struck. The firm will seek full accountability by filing a case in the US to ensure those responsible are held accountable for these lives that were lost through no fault of their own.”
Kalavadia, known for music videos and directing a Gujarati movie, was in the area after a meeting at Law Garden area before the crash. He called his wife around 1:15 pm, telling her he was headed home. But he never reached. His remains were found within 700 metres of the crash site, and was later identified through DNA matching.
The causes for the crash of flight AI-171, a Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London Gatwick, from Ahmedabad on June 12, are not yet clear. The plane crashed shortly after take-off, killing 241 people aboard and 19 on the ground. Vishwash Kumar Ramesh was the sole survivor. The victims on the flight include 169 Indian nationals, 53 British nationals, 7 Portuguese nationals, and 1 Canadian national among the passengers and crew members.
Riyaz Chittiwala, 55, whose father, father Abdul Razaaq, 81, was on board Boeing 787-8 Dreamliner bound for London Gatwick on June 12, said he engaged the firm because they had succeeded in getting justice for families of the victims who had died in the crash of a plane manufactured by Boeing.
“Also, there is no risk. The firm is not charging any legal fees from us and they promise to get us the answers. We want the black box data, so we can investigate with the help of experts as to what exactly happened,” said Chittiwala.
Chittiwala said that he had received ₹25 lakh as interim compensation from Air India.
The Tata Group, which owns Air India, has offered ex gratia compensation of ₹1 crore for families of deceased passengers and ₹25 lakh for ground victims. This payment is in addition to the ₹25 lakh interim compensation provided by Air India.
The Tata Group has also established the AI-171 Memorial and Welfare Trust with ₹500 crore, funded equally by Tata Sons and Tata Trusts, to support the long-term needs of the affected families.
HT had earlier reported about families of the plane crash victims hiring the US firm.
The Boeing 737 MAX cases that established Beasley Allen’s reputation involved two crashes that killed 346 people between 2018 and 2019 - Lion Air Flight 610 in Indonesia and Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 in Ethiopia. Boeing ultimately paid $2.5 billion under a 2021 deferred prosecution agreement, including a $243.6 million criminal penalty, $1.77 billion to airlines, and $500 million for crash victim families.
Boeing has since settled more than 90% of the claims and paid billions more in individual compensation to families, with the company acknowledging liability for the crashes caused by the faulty Maneuvering Characteristics Augmentation System (MCAS), US Department of Justice records showed.
The Aircraft Accident Investigation Bureau of India leads the inquiry with participation from the US National Transportation Safety Board, the UK’s Air Accidents Investigation Branch and Boeing representatives.
Andrews has previously disputed the findings in the interim report by the Aircraft Accident Investigation Board (AAIB), which suggests potential pilot action. The law firm executive argued that a Flight Data Recorder only detects changes in electrical current, not manual switch movements. This, he said last month, raises the possibility that a computer-triggered fault, rather than human error, that caused both engine fuel control switches to send a CUTOFF signal.
