UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA IN RE: AIR CRASH OVER THE SOUTHERN INDIAN OCEAN, ON MARCH 8, 2014 ___________________________________ MDL Docket No. 2712 This Document Relates To: Misc. No. 16-1184 (KBJ) ALL CASES MEMORANDUM OPINION The legal claims in this multi-district litigation (“MDL”) arise from one of the greatest aviation mysteries of modern times: the disappearance of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH370 somewhere in the southern Indian Ocean in the early morning hours of March 4, 2014. Flight MH370 took off from Kuala Lumpur International Airport in Malaysia at 12:42 AM that morning, en route to Beijing, China, with 227 passengers and 12 crew members aboard the plane. Thirty-nine minutes after takeoff, while the Boeing 777 aircraft was flying over the South China Sea and transitioning from Malaysian to Vietnamese airspace, Malaysian air traffic controllers lost radar contact with the aircraft. At Malaysia’s behest, a massive international search and rescue effort ensued, but neither the plane nor any wreckage was recovered, and on January 28, 2015, the Malaysian Department of Civil Aviation (“MDCA”) announced that all aboard Flight MH370 were presumed deceased. Some pieces of wreckage have since washed ashore on islands in the Indian Ocean and on the eastern coast of Africa, but, to date, most of the plane remains unaccounted for, including the cockpit voice recorder and the flight data recorder. Following the disappearance of Flight MH370, litigation commenced in both Malaysia and in the United States; many plaintiffs have filed suit in both jurisdictions. In the United States, complaints were filed in California, the District of Columbia, Illinois, New York, South Carolina, and Washington state, and the Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation subsequently centralized the pretrial proceedings with respect to all of these cases in this District. (See Transfer Order, ECF No. 1.) The complaints in these matters can generally be grouped into two categories. First, there are cases that assert claims under the Montreal Convention against the defendant airlines—Malaysia Airlines System Berhad (Administrator Appointed) (“MAS”) and Malaysia Airlines Berhad (“MAB”)—and/or their insurers, Allianz Global Corporate & Specialty SE (“AGCS SE”), and Henning Haagen, an officer at AGCS SE. Second, there are cases that assert common law wrongful death and products liability claims against airplane manufacturer Boeing, including claims based on a res ipsa loquitor tort theory. There is also a single complaint that resides in the overlap between these two groups—it asserts Montreal Convention, wrongful death, and personal injury claims, and names MAS, MAB, AGCS SE, Haagen, and Boeing as defendants. All told, 40 complaints are currently pending in this MDL. Before this Court at present are five ripe motions pertaining to particular threshold issues that various defendants have raised: (1) a joint motion seeking dismissal of all pending cases based on the doctrine of forum non conveniens, in which Defendants argue that it would be more convenient to ligate these matters in Malaysia, 2 as opposed to the United States (see Joint Mem. in Supp. of Mot. to Dismiss on the Ground ...
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