Although airplane crashes are very rare they still occur. In 2016, a total of 325 died from a grand total of only 19 airplane crashes. Flying is actually the safest mode of transportation and the odds of actually dying in one is one in a eleven million. To put this in perspective, almost 450 people died from falling out their beds and one’s chances of dying in a car accident is one in five thousand. In addition to the low chance of actually being in a plane accident, one also has a significant chance of surviving one. Passengers aboard a crashed plane have a 95.7 chance of surviving, even in the most deadly of circumstances, the National Transportation Safety Board states that seventy-six percent of the time passengers aboard a crashed aircraft survive. Even though it seems the odds might be in one’s favor, there are still serious and fatal accidents that occur. Many of these accidents are due to negligence from the airline, airplane manufacturer, the air traffic controller and even mistakes by the crew members. This paper will discuss the certain case studies that pertain to these, what were the outcomes and who was liable for it. This paper will include the basic knowledge that was thought in the Legal Aspects of Engineering course taken. 1
There are two federal agencies that regulate air travel: The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The FAA sets the standards for aircraft manufactures, pilots, air traffic controllers and flight operations. The NTSB is responsible for investigating aircraft accidents and recommends safety standards based on accidents to help prevent future accidents. These thorough standards, rules and laws can only prevent so much. When an accident does occur, there can be many different parties liable to pursue a legal claim against. The legal process for aviation is complicated due to both private, commercial, federal and international parties that can be linked to the accident. For the plaintiff to prove the defendant is guilty, he/she must show that the person/company/government failed to meet a certain standard that can be associated with the operation and maintenance of the aircraft, the engineering and manufacturing of the aircraft and finally the regulatory issues given by the FAA that the pilots, stewardess, airlines, manufactures and controllers must adhere to. While proving the fault that occurred, airplane accident lawsuits usually fall under two categories, products liability or negligence.
Negligence is defined as the “failure to take reasonable care to avoid causing injury or loss to another person.”2 In order for the plaintiff to win, he/she must prove that the following four things:
1.) Duty of care
2.) Breach of said duty
3.) Causation
4.) Damages/Injury
The duty, states that the defendant has a duty to the plaintiff and others and said duty must be exercised with reasonable care. If this defendant does not fulfill his/her duty then there is a breach. The defendant could breach this duty through an act or guilty omission.2The injury must be reasonable and is a consequence of the breach of that duty. The damages that follow are the result of the said act or omission. Duties in negligence can vary from a driver owing a duty to other motorists to drive safely and conduct themselves with the rules of the road. Such as stopping a stop sign or a red light. If the driver runs through either of these, they breach their duty as a motorist. If the motorists injured someone as a result of these, there was a breach. This is a simple example; a more serious example could be an air traffic controller failing to do his/her job responsibly.
Air traffic controllers have a very difficult/stressful job that often leads the controller to suffer from fatigue. They work extremely long hours under stressful conditions, this fatigue sometimes hinders many of the important responsibilities given to them.3 This fatigue reduces response time, it affects their concentration and this all equates to bad decision-making. Some common errors air traffic controllers make are the failure to: warn of known hazards including weather and nearby aircraft, responding to a pilot, promptly responding to a developing emergency, and lack of communication between the pilots and the controller. 4The latter especially adheres to foreign pilots, whose first language may not be English (which is the international language for flight based on FAA regulations). Air traffic controllers must be licensed by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA). The FAA comprehensively regulates the Controller’s Handbook for air traffic controllers. Because of this, when a controller fails to follow the handbook or violates an FAA regulation it is very important for proving negligence has occurred. In addition to having the handbook, a controller also has a duty of reasonable care and it can be breached even without violating a regulation. If his/her act or failure to act was unreasonable under the circumstances at the time, then the controller can be charged with negligence. Once misconduct is established, the link between the mistake of the controller and the airplane accident must be proven. After the link between controller and accident is made, the damages caused by the accident can be assessed and assimilated with the mistake. Death of a victim would be brought by the victim’s family and a wrongful death lawsuit can be brought on their behalf. 3
Negligence is the lack of responsibility, whereas liability is the responsibility a person or company has for his/her or their customers5. Liability is when a cause leads to an undesirable or damaging result. It means there is some sort of conscious decision that generates damage or injury which causes harm. This lack of care to could create liability and could also be defined as a failure to act as a reasonable person would. When liability is brought into the legal world, there are three wrongs it can be categorized as: a tort, a crime, and a breach of contract. A tort is a wrongfully act committed against an organization or a group of people causing a loss to them. A crime could include: murder, theft, battery, assault, etc. And a breach of contract is a when a condition of a contract is not met. The court will then award the plaintiff damages if he/she suffered an injury or loss in the case of negligence because the of the failure of said duty.
Liability in the airline industry can come from many different people. They can come from the commercial airliners or what is legally classified as a common carrier, the owner or operator of the aircraft, the manufacturer of the aircraft or a combination of any of these. Each one of above have a liability to its customers to ensure a safe flight is ensured and that they must assume responsibility if an accident does occur.
A common carrier is a commercial airline that willing sell tickets to the public in exchange for a flight. These airlines are held to a very strict standard. Like explained above, the FAA is responsible for regulating airplanes and these airliners. A common carrier are responsible for the maintenance and upkeep of their airplanes. However, in the last few years many of the United States major airliners have outsourced their maintenance facilities to foreign countries causing an increase in maintenance woes. They FAA also regulates uniform standards for stewardesses and operating procedures for the airlines pilots. The person that owns the aircraft and operates it are held to the highest of standards as well because of the legal duty of care they owe to others. If the owner and operator can be shown to be reckless or careless, they will be held liable for the damages that the injured party or parties suffered. The injured parties could include the passengers on the aircraft at the time, the pilot operating the aircraft and finally the pedestrians on the ground. The owner can also be found liable even if they weren’t operating the aircraft during the time of the crash. This is called vicarious liabllity6, which is when an owner can be found liable for the actions of their employees depending on the situation. An example of this could be a stewardess harassing a customer or a pilot not properly inspecting his equipment before takeoff. This liability is very tricky because it has to be proven that the employee had to be acting for the company, not as in personal enrichment or anger or laziness. The manufacturer of the aircraft can also be found liable under what is known as the strict products liability. If an aircraft if the plaintiff who was injured can prove that a defective in the aircraft or component of the aircraft caused the injuries to him or her. Strict products liability says that a seller or manufacturer of the product is liable even if the person injured did everything in their power to ensure the defect never occurred. In many liability cases the owner, operator and manufacturer can all be found liable for an accident. The judge and jury during a case will determine the amount of liability for each one of the defendants. This means that the airline can be found at 15% liable, the pilot could be found another 35% liable and finally the manufacturer could be found the remaining 50% liable for damages caused to the plaintiff.7 Many of times the court distributes the negligence of all parties using comparative fault which reduces the amount the plaintiff can recover in damages. When the court finally does decide who is liable and negligent in these airplane accidents, the damages the can be recovered can include the paying of past and future medical bills, future distress and pain, loss of a loved one which includes family, and finally punitive damages. 7
What Causes Airplane Accidents.
There are many different ways an airplane fails. However, many of the failures of commercial airlines is due to badly done maintenance. There has been a number of examples in recent years of large commercial airlines sending their planes for high level maintenance to different countries over the past two decades. As labor costs increase, many airlines have resorted to sending their airplanes to have their annual checkups and maintenance to countries where labor is much cheaper. This has resulted in strict rules regulated by the FAA to be much harder to control.
Heavy maintenance is essentially a complete teardown of the aircraft. Every single panel, nut, bolt, rivet, wings, tail, and everything located in the fuselage are striped and checked. All cables and electronics are checked for inspection to ensure they are working as designed. All the mechanical parts are also stripped, including the blade tips for the engines, the hydraulics for the entire plane, wheels, brakes, landing gear are all carefully checked for corrosion and wear. There are millions of parts checked for this heavy maintenance and what is currently being seen in the industry are the results of poor workmanship.6The largest facility currently used by many major airlines from the united states is located in El Salvador called Aeroman’s. Here at Aeroman’s only one out of eight are FAA certified and it gets worse when you go to countries such as China, where a large maintenance shop used by United Airlines has a ratio of 1 to 33 for FAA certified mechanics to non-certified mechanics. American Airlines is the last large remaining domestic airline to still have a maintenance shop here in the U.S. There facility is the opposite of foreign shops where for every four certified mechanics there’s only one non-certified. The problem with the foreign repair shops is the fact the inspector loses his/her act of surprising the shop. FAA’s headquarters is located in the San Francisco Bay area, which means they are a simple flight away from any domestic maintenance facility. However, now inspectors must travel much further distances, which only part of the problem. Now when an FAA inspector must gain permission from the foreign government where the facility is located, a visa is granted for the a specific time for the inspector which equates to the loss of the surprise element that one would have in the United States. Now foreign shops can prepare for when an inspector is coming. Clearing its shops of non-FAA certified mechanics and ensuring their inspection passes.6
The FAA’s website posts all accidents due to maintenance, design/manufacturing and operational use. A full report is written explaining exactly what went wrong and who was at fault. A famous airline accident happened on July 17,1996 at 8:31 PM Eastern Time. The airplane crashed 8 miles of the eastern coast of Long Island after it took off from John F. Kennedy International Airport. “The airplane was being operated on an instrument flight rules (IFR) flight plan under the provisions of Title 14, Code of Federal Regulation (CFR), Part 121, on a regularly scheduled flight to Charles De Gaulle International Airport (CDG), Paris, France8.” The plane was manufactured 25 years prior and had 212 passengers and 18 crew members. The plane was completely destroyed, and everyone was killed. The plane’s crash was sudden a was due to a disastrous in-flight breakup. Witnesses said they saw an explosion then the debris falling from the sky to the ocean. Witnesses also said they saw a missile or missile “contrail” in the area of the flight. The pilot never reported a problem to air traffic control and there were no external factors such as weather conditions to have influenced the accident.
The investigation was unlike any other because of the eyewitness’s testimonies because of this the Federal Bureau of Investigation was involved as well as the typical NTSB. The plane was recovered and were examined for missile/bomb residue however none were found. After all wreckage was recovered and examined it was determined that the cause of the accident was an explosion in the center wing fuel tank. This explosion was caused by an ignition of the flammable fuel/air vapors in the tank. However, the source of the ignition was not determined with 100% certainty. However, the most likely cause was an fuel indicating system within the fuel tank. A short-circuit would have caused a high electric spark within the fuel tank that would ignite the flammable vapors.
This crash resulted in a few things, lawsuits against TWA and Boeing as well as regulation changes for the future of aviation. The lawsuits brought against were all settled six years after the accident. The original ruling in 2000 allowed the family members to sue for damages against the airline and manufacturer. Although liability was never fully determined, Boeing and TWA agreed to compensate the families with a grand total of over half a billion dollars in total. After this accident the FAA implemented many safety precautions relating to the fuel ignition systems. The FAA required the reexamination of all existing commercial fleets and required the implementation of safety enhancements during heavy maintenance. Although this lawsuit and investigation didn’t lead to directed pointed finger with regards to whose responsibility it was, it is important to note that the families of the victims still received compensation from both the manufacturer and the airline.
Another famous flight accident that was on July 25, 2000. The flight was AFR 4590 and the aircraft that was carrying the passengers was the Concorde. In the 60’s a commercial supersonic war began between the Europeans, Russians and the Americans. Who was going to be the first country to make a commercial supersonic aircraft. A collaboration between the French and English won, however the aircraft designed did come with its faults. When traveling at such high speeds the aircraft would become super-hot. In fact, the expansion of metal meant that the aircraft was one foot longer when flying supersonic as compared to on the ground. This caused many issues with such a high-profile aircraft. However, flight AFR 4590 was the only fatal accident. According to the FAA website, the flight was full with 100 passengers, 3 flight crew and 6 cabin crew members. The flight was taking off from Paris’s Charles de Gaulle airport and flying to New York. The aircraft had been out of service between July 17 to the 21st for scheduled maintenance. This involved the removal of some landing gear components, tire pressure system checks. After the maintenance another four flights were conducted and on the day of the flight the aircraft was meant to be a reserve aircraft. However, due to the other plane not being available, this aircraft was used. A few seconds after a velocity of 150 knots, the plane experienced a disruption. A piece of metal debris from a DC-10 aircraft that had taken off a few minutes earlier struck the second main landing gear tire.
This metal debris destroyed the tire and resulted in segments of the tire striking the left wings underside. Located in the wings were the fuel tanks for the engine. This piece was not to puncture the tank but instead deform it. This deformity produced “a mechanical process within the fuel tank referred to as a hydrodynamic pressure surge.” This resulted in a part of the tank to break and break off from the wing. Now a massive amount of fuel was leaking, and a massive fire was started due to electrical arcs from wires within the wings. The takeoff continued, and the plane crashed almost 90 seconds after these events took place. Everyone on the plane was killed and 6 on the ground was injured.
After the investigation, it was stated that the metal strip from the DC-10 aircraft was the problem. This piece caused the tire failure, which caused the deformation of the tank, which then caused the fuel to leak and become ablaze which then resulted in the failure of other major systems on the Concorde. The metal strip found was a reverser wear strip. This wear strip forms a seal inside the thrust reverser duct and is used to provide an additional surface for wear. After the DC-10 aircraft was brought in for investigation, it was found that the rivet holes and other features matched the wear marks matched the piece recovered from the runway in Paris. The same piece that caused the damage to flight 4590’s tire. Maintenance records for the DC-10 shown the wear strip was replaced in June of the wear 2000 during regular maintenance. An additional replacement was done prior to July 25th. The second activity of maintenance was specifically to replace the thrust reverser wear strip which was reported to the airline (Continental) to being twisted and sticking out of the engine.
The maintenance instructions provided by the manufacturer were reviewed for the investigation. A detail examination of the reverse cowl found that there were a total of 37 drill holes in the engine mount itself. However, the reverse strip recovered from the runway only revealed 12 holes in the sheet metal. This was due to many major repairs and replacements of the part. The increase in holes was determined to weaken the mounting point of the new wear strip which helped in the result of it falling loose onto the runway. It was also determined that the area where the strip was mounted was identified as a minor repair which allowed flexibility in the steps used to replace the strips. Another problem identified was the installation of the wrong material wear strip. According to the manufacturer a wear strip made of stainless steel sheet metal was needed for this particular type of engine, however the repair shop installed a titanium/aluminum alloy sheet metal.
The investigation pointed the fingers to the DC-10 aircraft being the problem. French courts brought the mechanic responsible for the mistake to court as well as two officials from Continental. However, the main focus was on the mechanic from Houston, John Taylor. In 2010 Taylor and Continental was convicted of manslaughter, however two years later in appeals court the judge overruled the conviction and said that their mistakes didn’t make them criminally responsible. It was also stated in court that the plane took off over 800 kilograms overloaded and that the plane itself was not safe for flying. John Taylor did face 15 months in prison and Continental was fined $200,000. Claude Frantzen, who was the head of France’s civil aviation authority was faced with prosecution for negligence. It was stated that he ignored the signs of the previous Concorde tire accidents, however he was also cleared from any offence. The families had already been compensated for the damages by both Continental and Air France years prior to these rulings.
In conclusion based on these very high profile airplane accidents it can be seen that it is very hard to convict anyone of negligence or liability especially after a crash and when so many people are involved with managing of the aircraft. Usually the families are compensated for the damages, but they are often looking for a more meaningful result, like the conviction of the person responsible for the accident. Many factors are at play when an airplane accident occurs and often takes years to come to some sort of conclusion.