Lancashire man who was in Ethiopian air disaster was unlawfully killed
A coroner looking into the deaths of Sam Pegram, along with two other brits, made the ruling yesterday
Last updated 11th Jul 2023
A Lancashire man who was killed in the Ethiopian Airlines disaster was unlawfully killed, a coroner has ruled.
Yesterday an inquest took place looking into the death of Sam Pegram from Preston, along with two other british people who were on board.
The finding comes four years after Ethiopian Airlines ET302 crashed en route from Addis Ababa to Nairobi on March 10 2019, killing humanitarian workers Sam, Oliver Vick, 45, and sustainability campaigner Joanna Toole, 36, among others.
The inquest heard, in a final report from December 2022, that the Ethiopian Airplane Accident Investigation Bureau had found that a flying control system on the Boeing 737 Max aircraft had malfunctioned, causing the aircraft to begin "repetitive and uncommandable" nose diving which the pilots could not physically control.
The inquest also heard that "safety critical" information on the control system and awareness of the mechanism was deliberately not disclosed by two Boeing company pilots to the American authorities, which led to a lower level of training being needed to operate the planes.
Sam's dad has welcomed the ruling. In a statement outside court he said: "It means that it's now publicly recognised in a UK court was unlawful and led to the death of Sam.
"It's been deeply traumatic. As well as dealing with the grief, we are continually having to relieve the day that we lost Sam and the consequences of that day".
"Sam was such a caring loving person. He had such drive"
Boeing has been fined around £1.8 billion in 2021 after it was found that the actions of its employees had misled regulators about the control system.