NEW YORK: A Chicago jury has awarded $29 million to the family of an Irish-born United Nations employee who died in a 2019 Boeing 737 MAX crash, according to US court papers published on Wednesday.

The civil suit was brought against Boeing by Naoise Connolly Ryan, widow of Michael Ryan, an engineer with the UN World Food Programme who was one of the victims in the Ethiopian Airlines crash that killed all 157 people on board.

“The jury finds the total amount of damages suffered by plaintiff is $29 million,” read a court entry in Chicago’s district court.

Ryan had worked during the Ebola crisis in Liberia and with Rohingya refugees. A UN memorial page to Ryan, who was 39 at the time of the crash, also recognised his work in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal and Ethiopia.

The case is one of the final remaining civil suits pending against Boeing following the pair of deadly MAX crashes in 2018 and 2019 that together claimed 346 lives.

The vast majority of claims have been settled out of court with undisclosed terms, but Ryan was among a group of plaintiffs who refused to settle.

Published in Dawn, August 14th, 2026