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Posted on 05/12/2006 6:45:21 PM PDT by Paleo Conservative
NEW YORK — The crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in a quiet residential neighborhood nearly five years ago is subject to general maritime laws, a judge ruled Tuesday, allowing potentially higher damages for dozens of people who sued.
U.S. District Judge Robert W. Sweet said it did not matter that the plane crashed on land in Queens, killing 260 people on the plane and five on the ground. He noted that the plane was on a 1,500-mile transoceanic flight to the Dominican Republic.
"There can be no question that, but for the development of air travel, this trip — or some portion thereof — would have been conducted by a waterborne vessel and that it therefore bears a significant relationship to traditional maritime activity," the judge wrote in a 78-page opinion analyzing the issue.
Flight 587 had just taken off from John F. Kennedy International Airport on Nov. 12, 2001, when a section of its tail tore away as its pilot battled turbulence.
Numerous lawsuits were filed, though all have been settled except for those involving eight passengers and three people killed on the ground and more than 20 cases involving injury or property damage on the ground.
The judge noted in his ruling that there was no direct precedent for the facts at stake in the plane crash and that the defendants contended a plane must crash on the high seas, far from land, to be subject to maritime laws. Such laws generally allow for broader reasons for giving damages.
The judge said the aircraft's vertical stabilizer, a large metal and composite structure, plummeted into Jamaica Bay from an altitude of about 2,500 feet and was retrieved with the use of a crane.
"The general features of the incident may be described fairly as a large piece of an aircraft sinking in navigable waters," he said.
He said it was of no consequence whether Jamaica Bay is used for commercial traffic.
He said the accident also qualified as a maritime disaster because it falls within a class of incidents that have potential effects on maritime commerce and because it was a transoceanic flight that bears a significant relationship to traditional maritime activity.
Lawyers for the defendants — American Airlines, its Fort Worth, Texas-based parent, AMR Corp., and the plane's maker, Airbus Industrie G.I.E. — did not immediately return telephone messages for comment Tuesday.
A lawyer for the plaintiffs, Robert Spragg, said he had not seen the ruling and could not comment.
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Hmmm. The official cause, I thought, was wingtip vortices from a departing JAL 747-400. I was unaware that anything had been settled..
shoe bomb.
Airbus vertical stab falling in Jamaica Bay. Maritime. Makes sense to me.
Do you know what model it was? I think most of them have vert stab problems, don't they?
It's whatever version of the A300-600 AA has. I think the major difference between the AA version and the standard version is the ability to polish the aluminum rather than paint it.
In Favor of Plaintiffs, U.S. District Court Rules that AA Flight 587 Victims Can Sue Under Maritime Law for 'Societal Loss'
NEW YORK, May 11 /PRNewswire/ -- The United States District Court, Southern District of New York, ruled on Tuesday that families of the passenger victims of the November 2001 crash of American Airlines Flight 587 in Queens, NY, which killed 265 people and injured many others, can claim compensation under maritime law instead of New York law, and under maritime law can receive recovery for "loss of society." The decision therefore allows for evidence to be presented in their cases for loss of decedent's love, care and companionship. The effect of this ruling is that plaintiffs will be able to recover for non-pecuniary losses which, under NY law, would not be allowed.
Judge Robert W. Sweet agreed with plaintiffs' attorneys from Kreindler & Kreindler LLP that, in this case, maritime law should prevail. Plaintiffs argued that because the vertical fin of the Airbus A300 failed while the plane was over Jamaica Bay, the flight was inevitably doomed to crash at that moment, and therefore maritime law should apply as a guidepost to determine compensatory damages. The determinative fact was not where the plane ultimately crashed, but where it lost control and became doomed.
"Maritime law is a far more humane set of laws within which to litigate this case," said attorney Blanca I. Rodriguez of Kreindler. "Many victims of this tragedy were low income earning immigrants visiting relatives in the Dominican Republic, and the harsh limitations of New York compensatory damages law would not have allowed these families fair compensation. But beyond that, the ruling is fair under the law. The inevitability of this crash -- and therefore the resulting deaths -- was established over a body of water, and so maritime law must apply. In the fight for fairness to victims of aviation disasters, this decision represents a significant victory."
With respect to the ground victim cases, Judge Sweet also agreed with the plaintiffs' attorneys that New York law applied to these victims, and that under New York law they have a claim for punitive damages against American Airlines, a Texas Corporation, and Airbus Industrie G.I.E., a French company.
"Almost three dozen cases from this crash remain unsettled, and the effect of this ruling is to give these plaintiffs security that they are legally entitled to receive damages for the non-pecuniary and pecuniary losses," said attorney Robert J. Spragg of Kreindler.
The flight, originating from JFK International Airport, was en route to the Dominican Republic when it crashed soon after takeoff on November 12, 2001.
About Kreindler & Kreindler LLP
Founded in 1950, Kreindler & Kreindler LLP (http://www.kreindler.com/) is internationally recognized as the first and most prominent aviation law firm in the United States. The firm has been the leading plaintiff legal counsel on thousands of aviation cases, including major ones such as the September 11 terrorist attacks, Pan Am Lockerbie Flight 103, Korean Airlines Flight 007, American Airlines Flight 587, and many cases of small private and commercial crashes. Its ranks include airplane and helicopter pilots, engineers and other technical experts. Kreindler has offices in New York, New Jersey and Los Angeles, CA. For more information, contact 212-687-8181.
http://consumerlawpage.com/article/airbus.shtml
The AD [airworthiness directive] was prompted by French aviation authorities which had reported similar problems in two Airbus A-300s which had suffered tail corrosion that could result in failures. The FAA warned that "since an unsafe condition has been identified that is likely to exist or develop on other airplanes of the same type design . . . this AD is being issued to prevent failure of both spring boxes of the variable lever arm due to corrosion damage, which could result in jammed rudder pedals, loss of rudder control, and consequent reduced controllability of the airplane."
Well, the plane did hit the 747's vorticies...twice. The first time the plane enountered them, the pilot made almost no inputs to the controls and the jet flew through it.. No big deal.
The second time, however, the pilot inexplicably stomped on the rudder peddles way beyond what was required. He did either three or four “hardovers” where one rudder peddle was pushed all the way to the right, then the left, causing the plane to yaw. Each hardover made the plane yaw even more—like a pendulum—eventually overloading the vertical stab and snapping it off.
That you could snap off a tail with rudder inputs raised a lot of eyebrows, but I believe it was in the Airbus manual.
Wasnt a composite material initially blamed? Now you know why they always say, "Caution wake turbulence form departing 747" with instructions to position and hold or cleared for takeoff..
"There can be no question that, but for the development of air travel, this trip — or some portion thereof — would have been conducted by a waterborne vessel and that it therefore bears a significant relationship to traditional maritime activity,"
and so it follows...
'There can be no question that, but for the development of a _____, your Uncle would have been your Aunt, and therefore.....'
What kind of stupid logic is this clown dishing out?
Despite the fact that some conspiracy theorists think it was a bomb, there is no evidence to support it.
Of course some people think Valujet 592 was a terrorist bomb and they probably think every single plane crash in history was a terrorist act.
The truth is, only a small percentage of plane crashes have been caused by criminal acts. Nearly all are caused by human error, mechanical failure, or most often, a combination of both.
I just looked up the ATSB's findings and here is their conclusion:
3.2 Probable Cause
The National Transportation Safety Board determines that the probable cause of this accident was the in-flight separation of the vertical stabilizer as a result of the loads beyond ultimate design that were created by the first officer’s unnecessary and excessive rudder pedal inputs. Contributing to these rudder pedal inputs were characteristics of the Airbus A300-600 rudder system design and elements of the American Airlines Advanced Aircraft Maneuvering Program.
Whole report: Warning! Big PDF.
http://www.ntsb.gov/publictn/2004/AAR0404.pdf
"If" the tail hadn't broken off...
"If" the Atlantic Ocean had evaporated 10 years ago...
This "penumbra" crap has got to stop. It's bad enough when it happens in the Supreme Court.
Doesn't the computer override such violent inputs by the pilot?
yep
aha!
you have trouble believing that one, too?
a plane fell out of the sky on a perfect morning
The story, like the airplane dropped off the radar pretty quick.
That's because they couldn't stop laughing long enough to answer the phone.
A piece of the plane happens to land in the water, and the judge says that makes it a maritime accident? It doesn't get much funnier than that....
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