MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 27th August, 2019) The Russian leasing company - Avia Capital Services - filed a lawsuit against the Boeing aircraft manufacturer to break the contract on deliveries of 35 Boeing 737 Max jets as these types of planes were worldwide grounded over security concerns, media reported on Tuesday.
The Russian firm, which is a subsidiary of the Russian Rostec state corporation, said that the two deadly plane crashes, involving Boeing 737 Max jets, had happened because of the "negligent actions and decisions of Boeing" both in designing the aircraft and "withholding critical information" from the US aviation safety authorities, the Financial Times newspaper reported.
The lawsuit was reportedly filed to the Cook County circuit court in Chicago. The Russian company accuses Boeing of intentionally hiding sensitive safety information about the aircraft so that the jets were purchased by customers.
Avia Capital Services says it has given Boeing a cash deposit of $35 million as part of the order and asks the money to be returned with interest along with $75 million in lost profits. The total sum demanded by the company under the lawsuit amounts to $115 million.
Steven Marks, the lawyer of Avia Capital Services, told Financial Times that Boeing had offered compensation to the firm but it turned out to be inadequate.
"I think you will see a number of other operators filing suit in coming months. This will be the first of many to come," Marks said.
Two Boeing 737 MAX planes have crashed in less than a year: one in Indonesia in October 2018 and another in Ethiopia in March. In the wake of the latest crash, aviation authorities and carriers around the world have either grounded all 737 MAX series aircraft, or closed their airspace to them.
The investigations into the incidents are underway but experts believe that a new automated stall-prevention system, called MCAS, could be behind the crashes. MCAS commands automatically push down the jet's nose in case of a critical angle of attack. However, when the information coming from sensors is wrong, such actions of the security system may pose a danger to the plane as MCAS commands may overpower pilots' attempts to pull up the nose of the jet. According to investigators, pilots of the crashed Ethiopian Airlines jet needed more than four minutes to realize that incorrect data from sensors urged MCAS to push the nose down in a situation when there was no need in that.
