Clodagh Finn: Cork widow's four-year battle to get justice over Boeing 737 Max crash

The thought of it still haunts her: “I’m stuck in a never-ending time loop that brings me right back to March 10 time and time again. The nightmares of planes falling from the sky, visions of what Mick must have experienced, the absolute terror, how he must have felt, the thoughts that must have gone through his head in those final moments.” 

The incalculable loss of her husband, and father to their two young children, is made even more acute knowing that another defective Boeing 737 Max crashed just five months previously. It went down into the Java Sea 13 minutes after taking off from Jakarta airport in Indonesia. 

All 189 passengers and crew on board perished, yet the jet model was still allowed to fly.

Last month, a US judge Reed O’Connor said Boeing’s failure to prevent the double disaster “may properly be considered the deadliest corporate crime in US history”. And yet, the judge told a court in Texas that he did not have the legal means to challenge a deal that gives the company immunity from prosecution.

Naoise Connolly-Ryan and the families of the 345 other victims don’t believe that is good enough. On the fourth anniversary of the death of her husband, who was deputy chief engineer at the UN’s World Food Programme, she is still no closer to getting justice.

The same is true for Irishman, Paul Kiernan, who lost his partner Joanna Toole on the same flight. In January, he told a court in Texas that he had to do two impossible things to reach a shared understanding of what justice means.

“First,” he said, “I have to describe to you the person Jo is. For this, I would tell all of you about a young woman who had dedicated her life to protecting animals and the world we share with them. 

"I would tell you about a fierce advocate and a relentless campaigner…I would tell you about a skilled strategist and quiet leader who guided international conservation policy first at the International Whaling Commission, and later at the United Nations.

“And I would tell you about a warm, funny, and affectionate person who loved me, and who I loved back twice as much.” 

The second impossible thing, he said, was to put into words the impact that losing one’s soulmate has on a person. 

“I would tell you how we had our whole lives to look forward to. How we had planned to have a small intimate wedding with close family and friends. How we had decided to move to London after Rome and buy our first home… 

"And I would have to explain to you what it is like to carry Jo’s bags to her taxi, kiss her and tell her that I love her, ask her to let me know when she arrives safely, and to wait for that call for the rest of my life.

I am already waiting for one call that I know will never come, I hope this will not be the second.

His call for justice, however, was not answered. That was clear last January when Judge Reed O’Connor turned down a request from families to throw out the controversial deal struck between Boeing and the US Justice Department in 2021.

That agreement, known as a deferred prosecution agreement, was made in secret without any input from the victims’ families. Crucially, it means that Boeing officials are immune from prosecution.

While a compensation fund of $500m was set aside for victims, many relatives have dismissed it as “blood money”. They want to see those responsible held to account.

To that end, Naoise Connolly-Ryan went all the way to Washington last November to keep a 7am appointment at the Department of Justice so that she could sit down, face-to-face, with officials and “look them in the eye”.

There was a “lot of huffing and puffing”, she said at the time, but no commitment to change their approach. She travelled to Texas in January when Boeing was arraigned to answer a criminal charge of conspiracy to commit fraud related to the two air crashes. 

Both planes plummeted and crashed when an automated flight-control system — which Boeing did not initially disclose to airlines and pilots — pushed the nose of the plane down because of a faulty sensor reading. The company pleaded not guilty.

While the judge issued a stinging rebuke of Boeing, he said his hands were tied by Congress and he did not have the authority to act. “This Court has immense sympathy for the victims and loved ones of those who died in the tragic plane crashes resulting from Boeing’s criminal conspiracy.” 

Naoise Connolly-Ryan was “totally bewildered” by the ruling. “At one level, the judge was saying that the full force of the law should come down on Boeing and the responsible executives. He said this is one of the deadliest corporate crimes in the history of the United States. 

"And he has called these people criminals. And he has acknowledged that we are crime victims. And yet we were given nothing in return,” she said.

Now, she hopes to meet President Biden to starkly outline the families’ ongoing fight for justice. It’s not the first time that the US President has been asked to intervene. 

When Naoise contacted then-Taoiseach Micheál Martin last December, he contacted President Biden to request a meeting between the families and US Attorney General Merrick Garland.

“Our Department of Foreign Affairs got in touch through the Irish Embassy requesting a meeting – rather than a listening session – with Merrick Garland. Merrick Garland never had that meeting with us,” she says.

She now hopes to ask President Biden about that but, more urgently, to ask him to remove the “gag order” on families, so they can submit new information to the US Department of Justice which shows that Boeing executives knew they were allowing unsafe planes to fly.

She says Boeing has secured a sealing order on all information that comes to light in civil cases, which means it can’t be submitted as evidence elsewhere. 

If that information were allowed, she hopes the controversial deal would not only be annulled but Boeing chief executive David Calhoun and former Boeing chief executive Dennis Muilenburg would be criminally prosecuted.

Paul Cassell, a law professor at the University of Utah College of Law who is representing the families, filed an appeal with the US Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Cassell hopes to overturn Judge O’Connor’s ruling and obtain an order allowing the families to confer with the Justice Department about criminally prosecuting Boeing.

He said: “The Crime Victim’s Rights Act promises the families an opportunity to confer with prosecutors about holding Boeing accountable. I hope that the appellate court will enforce the law and give the families the right that they were promised in the law.” 

Meanwhile, the lasting impact of those avoidable crashes is crystal clear in the words of the victim impact statements that Naoise and Irishman Paul Kiernan read into the court record in Texas in January.

They will continue to pursue justice through the courts, and outside them, which brings us back to one victim’s appeal for six minutes of US President Joe Biden’s time.