The suit, filed by South Carolina representative Gregory D Keith on behalf of 44 families, alleges that manufacturing defects in the aircraft led to “a massive and cascading sequence of electrical failures”.
The defects had disabled critical systems and made it “impossible for the crew to navigate the plane or for the plane to communicate with ground stations”, according to excerpts from the case carried by The Post and Courier, the main daily paper in Charleston, South Carolina.
“The loss and inability to find the plane is substantially the result of Boeing’s decision not to equip the lost plane with readily available and reasonable alternative technologies that would have permitted the lost plane’s precise location to be tracked in real-time anywhere on the planet.”
The report said Keith, a partner with a downtown Charleston law firm, is seeking a jury trial and unspecified damages of over US$75,000 (about RM333,500) as well as reimbursement of various expenses.
The suit, dated March 4, was filed on behalf of the families of 44 passengers, mostly Chinese citizens. The report added that three of them lived in the US.
According to the paper, the case was filed in South Carolina as Boeing has major business operations in the state. The company has refused to comment on the matter.
Flight MH370 vanished on March 8, 2014, en route from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing. The Boeing 777 is said to have crashed over the southern Indian Ocean.
All 239 people on board are presumed dead, although the bulk of the flight’s wreckage has never been found. This is in spite of the largest search operation launched in aviation history.
On March 7, a total of 76 family members of foreign passengers on board the missing plane were reported to be taking Malaysian Airline System Berhad and the Malaysian government to court over negligence and breach of duties for statutory bodies.
They alleged that the plane’s disappearance was caused by the airline’s negligence, and the national carrier had breached the Montreal Convention by causing the injuries and death of all 239 passengers and crew.