Who can be held responsible for compensating the Mountain Lifeflight families, and who is immune from suit?
Maintenance. If faulty maintenance is proven to be the cause of this helicopter crash, the families can recover against the maintenance company, provided that the families can prove that the maintenance company was negligent. There is
The Federal Tort Claims Act allows citizens who have been injured by the federal government to sue the United States. But there’s an important exception. No suit against the government is allowed when the victim is a service member injured by the negligence of the United States military.
The rule protecting the military is called the Feres Doctrine
In the early stages of a lawsuit, it is often unclear which of two different defendants is responsible for an aviation accident. But as the case progresses, evidence may point to one defendant over another. When that happens, it may seem like a good idea for the victim to settle with (or dismiss from the lawsuit) the defendant whose
The FAA has instituted new rules designed to keep sightseeing helicopters from colliding with airplanes that are transitioning the Hudson River Corridor near the Statue of Liberty. The San Francisco Daily Journal, California’s largest legal newspaper, published this column on how the new rules came to pass, and why they aren’t enough.
The NTSB’s preliminary report on the crash contains little more than what was in the news accounts. The report does, however, offer one bit of new information. The helicopter impacted on a magnetic heading of 230 degrees. That heading is not in line with the route from Reno to Susanville. While that might ultimately prove to be important, little can be made
Aircraft engine manufacturers recommend that owners overhaul their engines when they accumulate a certain amount of operating time, usually between 1200 and 2400 hours depending on the engine’s make and model. For example, Teledyne Continental Motors suggests that owners overhaul its IO-550 model engine at 2000 hours. Textron Lyc
oming suggests that owners overhaul its O-235 engine, like the one pictured, at 2400 hours.
Overhauls are expensive. Some can cost $40,000 or more. An increasing number of owners opt to run their engines 200, 400 or more hours past the manufacturer’s recommended "time between overhauls," or TBO. Once past TBO, they may take extra precautions by, for example, regularly sending out engine oil samples for spectrographic analysis, checking the engine’s compression, and looking inside certain parts of the engine with a boroscope to insure that things look good. They feel the manufacturer’s TBO recommendations are somewhat arbitrary. By running their engines past TBO they are squeezing more life out of them, and that just makes good economic sense.
The FAA does not require private owners to comply with the manufacturer’s stated TBO interval. The manufacturer’s TBO is therefore advisory only. As long as a properly certified mechanic hasContinue Reading Running Past TBO: Smart Economics or Owner Negligence?
A crew member injured by an aircraft’s defective design may sue to hold the aircraft manufactu
rer accountable. At least he can when the aircraft involved in the accident was a civilian aircraft. If, however, the airplane or helicopter was a military aircraft, then the rules change.
A manufacturer who built an aircraft specifically for the military may be
An A-Star AS350B air ambulance helicopter crashed November 14 at Doyle, California, killing the 
three crew members on board. According to an article in the Reno Gazette Journal, the pilot made a distress call before the crash. That indicates that the pilot was likely experiencing a mechanical emergency. The photographs accompanying the article show that the wreckage was spread over a fairly large area. That indicates that the pilot lost control of the helicopter well before he was able to attempt an emergency landing.
Under the circumstances, the NTSB will be looking at the helicopter’s Continue Reading Mountain Lifeflight EMS Helicopter Crash at Doyle, California
This past April, the NTSB called upon the FAA to ground the entire fleet of Zodiac aircraft because their wings tend to fall off in mid-flight. As it turns out, a defect in the Zodiac’s design induces an aerodynamic phenomenon known as flutter. Flutter can destroy a wing or other control surface in a matter of seconds.