Mexican judge rules in favour of plaintiffs in 2018 Cuba plane crash

A Mexican judge has ruled that the plane involved in a 2018 crash in Cuba that killed 112 people suffered from severe maintenance failures and should never have flown, and ordered the owner to pay millions in damages to the families of the victims who sued.

According to court documents dated March 31 and seen Friday by The Associated Press, an independent expert determined the 2018 crash was an “institutional accident” caused by maintenance negligence.

The expert’s report, which sided with the plaintiffs, described the pilots as a “final line of defence” who were tragically unable to prevent the low-altitude crash.

Based on these findings, the judge ordered Mexican charter Aerolineas Damojh to pay Rs 1.5 million in damages to each of the families of the four Mexican crew members who filed the initial lawsuit.  The company failed to appear at trial and was tried in absentia. The aircraft’s insurer was also named in the lawsuit but was ultimately cleared of any financial penalties.

The Boeing 737 went down in a field moments after departing Havana’s Jose Marti International Airport, marking one of Cuba’s deadliest aviation disasters in decades.

Of the 113 people on board, only a Cuban woman survived. Most of the victims were Cubans.

A year after the accident, Cuba attributed the tragedy to crew error.