(NewsNation) — In March 2019, a Boeing 737 Max 8 plane carrying 149 passengers and eight crew members crashed six minutes after takeoff from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.
Nadia Milleron, whose daughter, 24-year-old Samya Stumo, was one of the passengers who died, wants to use her grief to stop something like this from happening to other families. Recently, Millerson announced she’s running for Congress.
“I got up off the couch in order that other people can keep smiling, in order that other people can be safe, because our government needs to protect us,” Millerson, an Independent running for representative in Massachusetts, said on “Morning in America.”
Milleron says she wants the Department of Justice to end a deferred prosecution agreement it reached with Boeing, telling NewsNation in an interview Tuesday that it would make company executives more accountable to safety risks their plans may pose to the public. She and other families of victims from Boeing plane crashes in 2018 and 2019 plan to meet with the Justice Department on Wednesday.
“The Justice Department and Boeing squirm and wiggle every which way to try to avoid responsibility,” Milleron said. What Milleron wants to see from both entities, she said, is “accountability and responsibility,” and for them to acknowledge that the issue is systemic.
Boeing has been under much scrutiny this year following an incident in January where a plug covering an unused exit door blew off a 737 Max as it flew above Oregon.
A Boeing spokesperson previously told NewsNation that the company continues to cooperate with both legislators and investigators as they look into the incident. Whistleblowers, meanwhile, have spoken out about various safety concerns they’ve had at the aerospace company for years.
“I want my daughter back but I can’t get her back,” Milleron said. “And so the only thing I can do is to prevent other moms and other families from feeling like I do and losing their people.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.