Kenyan Who Lost Five Family Members in the Ethiopian Plane Crash Donates Sh48 Million to Charity Abroad

A Kenyan man who lost five family members in the March 10th, 2019 Ethiopian Airlines plane crash has donated $446,000 (Sh48 million) to charity in Bermuda.

Paul Njoroge, who works as a banker in the island nation, donated the amount to the anti-child abuse organization Saving Children, Revealing Secrets and Family Centre, according to Royal Gazette.

He said the donation was a sign of love and appreciation for the overwhelming support he received from people following the tragic plane crash that claimed the lives of his family.

“When I lost my family, there was an immediate outpouring of support to me, much from people I did not even know. Those messages of hope gave me strength. It is a sign of love and with that same spirit, in the name of my beloved departed family, I asked that this donation be made,” said Njoroge.

Njoroge’s wife Caroline Karanja, son Ryan Njoroge Njuguna (7), daughter Kerry Paul Wanjiku Njuguna (4), seven-month-old daughter Rubi Wangui Njuguna, and his mother-in-law Ann Wangui Karanja were killed in the accident.

In December last year, Njoroge accepted a Sh327 million payment from Boeing to drop a suit against the US aircraft manufacturer.

This was the first settlement in a case filed in US Federal Court in Chicago against Boeing by Ribbeck Law Chartered on behalf of some families who lost their loved ones in the crash.

The Nairobi-bound Ethiopian Airlines Boeing 737 MAX plane went down six minutes after departing Bole International Airport in Addis Ababa, killing all 157 people on board.

With 32 victims, Kenya had the highest number of fatalities in the crash followed by Canada (18), Ethiopia (9), Italy, China, and the US with 8 each, the UK France and Egypt (7), Germany (5), while Slovakia and India had four each. 

In its final report on the Boeing 737 MAX, a legislative committee in the US found “repeated and serious failures” by Boeing and identified the key factors that led to the Boeing 737 MAX crash, among them design flaws, profit, and production priorities at the expense of safety.

The report indicates that Boeing, under pressure to compete with Airbus and deliver profits for Wall Street, escaped scrutiny from the FAA, withheld critical information from pilots, and ultimately put planes into service that killed 346 innocent lives in the two crashes.