CHICAGO – A man whose wife died when a Nigerian commercial airliner crashed into a crowded neighborhood in that country’s largest city filed a lawsuit in the United States on Thursday that blames the accident, at least in part, on U.S. companies that designed, manufactured and sold the ill-fated plane.

An American attorney filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Chicago on behalf of David Chukwunonso Allison, whose wife, Joy Chiedozie Allison, was on the Dana Air MD-83 that went down in the African nation Sunday afternoon. The crash killed 153 people who were on the plane and an undetermined number of people on the ground.

Among those named in the 56-page lawsuit are Chicago-based Boeing Co., which bought the McDonnell-Douglas manufacturer of the plane, and Connecticut-based engine-maker Pratt & Whitney.

Gary Robb, a Kansas City, Mo.-based aviation attorney who filed the lawsuit for David Allison, said reports of engine failure as the plane approached Lagosm point to the companies’ culpability.

Nigeria’s Aviation Minister Stella Oduah said Wednesday that the flight’s captain radioed Lagos as the aircraft approached and declared an emergency, saying both of the MD-83’s engines had failed. Minutes later, the plane crashed into several buildings.

Without offering details, the suit claims the Pratt & Whitney “engines used a defective and unreasonably dangerous design.”

 

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