WASHINGTON — Three years to the day after Samya Stumo’s untimely death in an overseas plane crash, her advocates in Congress have moved to rename a federal fellowship program after her.
Stumo, a 2010 graduate of Mount Everett Regional School in Sheffield, died as a result of the crash of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 near the town of Bishoftu, Ethiopia, on March 10, 2019.
Yesterday, two key members of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation introduced legislation to rename the National Air Grant Fellowship Program and to commemorate the 347 lives lost due to the Ethiopian Airlines and Lion Air Boeing 737 MAX-8 crashes, according to a written statement from committee chair Sen. Maria Cantwell (D-WA.) and ranking member Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS.).
If passed, the program would be renamed the “Samya Rose Stumo National Air Grant Fellowship Program,” in honor of the then-24-year-old international public health advocate.
Born in Connecticut and raised in the Berkshires, Stumo was an avid international traveler. As a teenager, she spent a year in Peru as part of a Rotary Youth Exchange. As an undergraduate at the UMass-Amherst, she returned to Peru to study the health needs of rural indigenous people. She then earned a graduate degree at the University of Copenhagen and completed an internship at the Barcelona Institute for Global Health.
Stumo booked a seat on Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 while on assignment for ThinkWell Institute, a nonprofit healthcare organization based in Washington, D.C. She planned to travel to Kenya and Uganda to establish local offices for ThinkWell’s healthcare initiatives. Last November, the organization launched the Samya Rose Stumo Memorial Fellowship for Global Health in her honor.
“I am grateful for the ongoing advocacy of the Lion Air 610 and Ethiopian Airlines 302 families and share their dedication and commitment to advancing aviation safety for the flying public,” Cantwell said in the statement. “Samya Rose Stumo traveled the world with a purpose — to make it a better place. Her life, along with the other victims of these tragedies, was cut short.
In addition to honoring Stumo, the bill recognizes by name and commemorates the lives of the 156 passengers and crew who also died in the Flight 302 crash, the 189 passengers and crew who died in the Lion Air Flight 610 crash on October 29, 2018, and the life of Indonesian diver Syachrul Anto, who died during search and rescue recovery operations in the aftermath of that crash, Cantwell’s office says.
Alleging negligence, a failure to warn, and civil conspiracy, Stumo’s family filed a lawsuit three years ago against aircraft manufacturer Boeing. Lawyers for the family said the Ethiopian crash “should never have happened” and that “the shortcuts and greed of Boeing and others will be proven in the ensuing lawsuits as well as the utter disregard of the passengers they were to protect that could have avoided this tragic crash.”
Last year, Boeing reached a $2.5 billion settlement with the U.S. Justice Department, in part over persistent flight-control software defects linked to the 737 MAX-8 crashes. In a statement announcing the settlement, the Justice Department said “Boeing’s employees chose the path of profit over candor by concealing material information from the FAA concerning the operation of its 737 Max airplane and engaging in an effort to cover up their deception.”
“Samya’s selfless dedication to improving the lives of others was inspiring to everyone around her and guides our family’s advocacy for meaningful change each day,” said Samya’s father, Sheffield resident Michael Stumo. “I thank Chair Cantwell and Ranking Member Wicker for honoring all the victims of Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 on this day, the third anniversary of the crash, and for ensuring that Samya’s legacy of service continues through the Samya Rose Stumo National Air Grant Fellowship Program’s mission to invest in young aerospace leaders and improve aviation safety for future generations.”
The program was enacted into law with the signing of the Aircraft Certification, Safety, and Accountability Act in December 2020, authorizing $15 million a year for fiscal years 2021 to 2025 to award aerospace policy fellowships.
Under the National Air Grant Fellowship Program, each fellow spends a year within either a congressional office that has jurisdiction over the FAA, or within an office at the FAA, to assist the federal government in keeping pace with changing aviation-related technology and developing aviation safety policy.
Cantwell’s office says the program provides fellows with valuable educational and professional experiences in the field and will help build a new generation of talent for the FAA and Congress to draw from as they make policy in this space.
The text of the Samya Rose Stumo National Air Grant Fellowship Program Act of 2022 can be found here.
