Insight and Commentary on aviation accidents and the law
An airline’s liability for a passenger’s injury or death is most often determined by state law. But if the passenger’s trip includes a stop in a foreign country, then the airline’s liability is controlled entirely by international treaties. The treaties are known as the Warsaw Convention and the Montreal Convention.
The treaties also govern a…
For years, wrongdoers have tried to avoid responsibility for accidents they cause by arguing that, as long as they have complied with the applicable FAA regulations, they should be off the hook. Aircraft manufacturers, for example, argue that because the FAA certified their aircraft design before it went into production, a passenger injured in one of their airplanes…
CNN recently came up with advice on how to survive a plane crash. Make a plan, brace yourself, know where the exits are, and so on. All good stuff. But if you really want to increase the odds of surviving your flight, here’s what you need to do: every hour, unbuckle your seatbelt, get up, and walk around for…
Scene System’s animation of the crash of US Airways Flight 1549 is a viral hit. The litigation support firm combined available ATC audio tapes, flight track information, and an on-scene photograph into a great recreation. This is the exactly the type of animation used in court to help juries understand the details of an aviation…
Actually, the black box is day-glo orange. And there are two of them.
The first is the Cockpit Voice Recorder. It records not just what is said in the cockpit, but also all the background mechanical sounds that provide clues to determining the chain of events leading to the accident. The NTSB, along with other parties to…