The Mexican judge’s ruling adds another legal layer to a crash that took place shortly after a Boeing 737 departed Havana’s José Martí International Airport in 2018, killing all but one of the 113 people on board, with most victims Cuban.
The plaintiffs sued over the fatal crash, and court documents dated March 31 that were seen by The Associated Press describe an independent expert’s conclusion that the aircraft suffered from severe maintenance failures. In the judge’s decision, the crash resulted from what the expert characterized as maintenance negligence rather than solely a problem of crew action, according to the documents.
The expert’s report sided with the plaintiffs and described the crash as an “institutional accident,” with the maintenance shortcomings reaching a level that, in the expert’s view, left the pilots as a “final line of defense” who were unable to prevent the low-altitude crash. Based on those findings, the judge ordered Aerolíneas Damojh to pay $1.5 million in damages to each of the families of the four Mexican crew members who filed the initial lawsuit.
Court documents also show that Aerolíneas Damojh did not appear at trial and was tried in absentia. The aircraft’s insurer was named in the lawsuit but, in the outcome described in the documents, was ultimately cleared of financial penalties.
AP reported that the ruling stemmed from civil litigation connected to a crash Cuba later attributed, a year after the accident, to crew error. In Mexico, authorities had already temporarily suspended Aerolíneas Damojh and opened an investigation, according to the reporting. When contacted by AP about the state of the investigation, Mexico’s Secretariat of Communications and Transportation did not respond.
Lawyer Samuel González, who represents the plaintiffs, described the decision as a hard-won finding and said it validated what he said the company’s head of maintenance acknowledged in Havana on day one to family members—namely that the plane should never have been in the air. González said, “That plane flew over our heads for 10 years without maintenance,” and added, “It crashed in Cuba, but it could have happened anywhere.”
González also said the airline appears to be seeking bankruptcy and warned that, if he views it as “a fraudulent bankruptcy,” he said the plaintiffs would press charges. He further said that, beyond the initial lawsuit, a class-action civil suit representing all victims is underway, and that a criminal complaint for homicide has been filed with Mexico’s Office of the Attorney General against the company and other responsible parties.
According to González, the criminal investigation has stalled because Cuban authorities have not provided requested information. The Attorney General’s Office did not immediately respond to AP’s request for comment on the status of the case.
The reporting described Aerolíneas Damojh, operating as Global Air, as the provider of the Boeing 737 and the Mexican crew through a lease agreement with Cuba’s state carrier Cubana de Aviación.