A passenger injured in an aircraft accident can’t sue the aircraft manufacturer if the part that caused the crash is older than 18 years. Any such suit would be barred by the General Aviation Revitalization Act, or GARA.
What if the accident was caused by a mistake in one of the aircraft’s manuals rather than a
Nothing scares helicopter pilots more than wires. Flying into a wire is often fatal. What worries the pilot is that wires are hard to spot. The trick is to look for the towers. Once you see the towers, you can spot the wires strung between them.
But not always.
In January, a California Fish and Game
This week, aviation accident attorneys from across the country met on Maui to discuss current topics in aviation law. This was part of the American Association of Justice’s Winter Convention. I was honored to have been asked to speak. My talk was on Hawaii helicopter crash litigation — a topic with which we are —
In 1994, the FAA — hoping to reduce the number of helicopter tour crashes in Hawaii — promulgated a controversial rule that set minimum altitudes for Hawaiian sight seeing flights.
According to an article appearing this spring in Aviation, Space and Environmental Medicine, after the rule went into effect the overall number of helicopter crashes in Hawaii decreased
The easy answer: the applicant is the Pilot in Command and is fully responsible for the safe operation of the aircraft, not the FAA check pilot. But what about when the check pilot attempts to simulate an engine failure by chopping the throttle? At that point, hasn’t the check pilot assumed control of the aircraft?
Well, that’s
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
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
Thursday’s mid-air collision involving a Coast Guard C-130 and Marine Corps AH-1H Super Cobra was the second military helicopter crash that has occurred east of San Clemente Island since 2007.
On January 26, 2007, four were killed when a Navy MH-60S Seahawk crashed just miles from the 
spot of Thursday’s accident.
The Navy was unable to determine
There’s little question that EMS helicopters are the most dangerous aircraft in the sky. EMS helicopters have a fatal accident rate 6000 times that of commercial airliners. Flying EMS helicopters is one of the most dangerous jobs in America. In fact, according to the Washington Post, only working on a fishing boat is riskier.