Boeing settlement not enough after fatal crash, victim’s friend says

Grief hits Kellen Deighton in waves, six years after his friend Danielle Moore was killed in an Ethiopian Airlines plane crash.

A recent tentative agreement allowing for Boeing, the plane’s maker, to avoid criminal charges doesn’t sit right with Deighton — nor with other Manitobans who knew Moore.

“From the beginning, I thought that this should have resulted in actual arrests,” Deighton said. “They killed my friend.”

The U.S. Justice Department filed court papers Friday to reach an “agreement in principle” where Boeing would pay or invest more than US$1.1 billion for two plane crashes killing a total of 346 people.

Under the agreement, Boeing would avoid criminal prosecution for allegedly misleading U.S. regulators about its 737 Max craft. The jet type went down twice in a five-month span in 2018 and 2019, off the coast of Indonesia and in Ethiopia.

Should the deal go ahead, $445 million will go toward crash victims’ families. Boeing declined to answer questions about the arrangement this weekend.

The punishment isn’t enough, Deighton said. He echoed scores of people who have lost loved ones.

“There’s kind of like a before and after moment in a lot of our lives,” Deighton, whose brother dated Moore for roughly five years, said.

“Danielle was a very special person,” he continued. “She was pure, and her intentions to make the world a better place… (were) so powerful.”

Moore had been travelling to Nairobi, Kenya for the United Nations Environment Assembly. She was a passionate activist for the environment and human rights.

She was from Scarborough, Ont., and later moved to Winnipeg, working as an educator for Canada Learning Code’s mobile program.

By 24, her resumé was full. She volunteered for a swath of charities and had participated in Ocean Bridge, a Canada Service Corps. national conservation program, among other things.

Tributes to Moore exist throughout Canada. In Winnipeg, FortWhyte Farms has planted flowers in her name, while Robert Smith School in Selkirk started an outdoor classroom with a plaque honouring her.

Kim Cooke, Deighton’s aunt, teaches at the elementary school. She collaborated with Deighton, Moore’s mother and others to build the new classroom’s seating circle and gardens. A plaque commemorates Moore and the other 17 Canadians killed on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on March 10, 2019.

“We loved her dearly,” Cooke said.

She felt it wasn’t her place to comment on the Boeing agreement. However, the victims’ families “deserve way more,” Cooke said.

“Danielle was a very special person. She was pure, and her intentions to make the world a better place… (were) so powerful.”–Kellen Deighton

There’s a Danielle Moore scholarship in Nunavut; the territory was among the jurisdictions Moore taught at via Canada Learning Code. Moore left a “lasting mark” on FortWhyte Farms through her dedication to sustainability and community, FortWhyte Alive communications manager Mark Saunders wrote in a statement.

Moore’s legacy clearly lives on, Deighton stated: “It’s just too bad that I know she would’ve done tenfold.”

A criminal conviction against Boeing could have jeopardized the company’s status as a federal contractor, The Associated Press attributed experts saying.

In 2021, the U.S. Justice Department charged Boeing for deceiving Federal Aviation Administration regulators. The department agreed to nix prosecution if the company paid a US$2.5-billion settlement.

Federal prosecutors said last year that Boeing violated terms of the 2021 agreement by failing to make changes to detect and prevent violations of federal anti-fraud laws it promised.

Boeing agreed to plead guilty to the felony fraud charge in July. A U.S. district judge rejected the plea deal in December.

Boeing’s corporate headquarters are in Virginia. It has a large manufacturing footprint in Winnipeg.

— with files from the Associated Press

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com