An airliner was having engine trouble, and the pilot instructed the cabin crew to have the passengers take their seats and get prepared for an emergency landing.
A few minutes later, the pilot asked the flight attendants if everyone was buckled in and ready.
"All set back here, Captain," came the reply, "except one lawyer who is still in the aisle passing out business cards."
src rep-am.com/articles/2008/10/09/lifestyle/daily_laugh/doc48ecde248eb27266367816.txt
The only way to hurt big business is through the pocket book. When you hit them there, they eventually come around to doing what is right.
After this California wrongful death lawsuit verdict, my bet is that SDG&E will develop a belated conscience and will install safety devices or ball markers to help prevent this type of disaster.
So we are offering congratulations to the jurors for using their voices; and congratulations to the families. No amount of money is going to bring back those precious four lives, or ever ease the pain of their families, but, at the very least we can hope that the families will have some comfort that a small measure of justice has been served.
What: Kenya Police Air Wing Eurocopter AS 350B3e Ecureuil
Where: Ngong Hills, near Nairobi Kenya
When: June 10, 2012 8:30 a.m.
Who: 6 aboard, 6 fatalities
Why: Kenyan Internal Security Minister George Saitoti was killed in a helicopter crash on June 10, 2012. Clatus MacOwenga had been appointed in the investigation, and the appointment was backdated to January 5 to fill a legal gap for the period when no chief accidents investigator was in office. MacOwenga apparently was running an investigation separate from that of the President Kibaki’s public inquiry.
Martin Lunani is now the lead investigator, appointed for a period of three years : August 18 to August 17, 2015. The demotion occurred prior to Mr Macowenga submitting a report. Macowenga will now report to Mr Lunani.
The end of the investigations is scheduled to be October.
On January 23, 2010, there was fog at the time of takeoff and visibility was a half-mile. Gary Bradford and his passenger Drago Strahija were killed when Bradford’s plane crashed in a neighborhood eight minutes from the Aurora Municipal Airport.
The Doyles, the family in whose yard the plane crashed are suing the pilot’s widow. On April 5, the Doyle family will face Gary Bradford’s estate in court.
Rita Bradford and her deceased husband owned ENS Corp., a Florida IT firm. At the time of the crash, he had owned the plane for three months after 98 hours of instrument experience, and 52 hours of flight instruction in seven days.
The meat of the suit is that the Doyles say the pilot did not properly inspect, maintain or know how to land the Cessna.
When the Cessna crashed in the Doyle’s yard, the plane did not strike the house, but debris started a fire in the north side of the garage.
This is the sad story of Marwoto Komar, a pilot with 22 years of flight experience.
In March 2007, he piloted a Boeing 737-400 with 140 passengers on board which crashed on landing at the Yogyakarta airport. The plane came in for landing too high and too fast, and although the co-pilot called for a go-around, he landed on that pass anyway. The Boeing overran the runway and caught fire. Twenty-one people died in that crash.
The* IFALPA position is that criminalisation of individuals does not improve air safety.
In July 2008 he was arrested, tried and found guilty of negligence.
An Indonesian court sentenced Komar to two years imprisonment for his role in the crash.
* International Federation of Air Line Pilots Associations
George’s Point of View
You make a mistake.
People get killed.
You go to jail.
152 died in that crash in July of 2010, nearly a year and a half ago, and the report has still not been released.
Whatever the errors were that occurred, the report should have been released by now, especially after Air Blue made several commitments to release dates of that report. Full disclosure of accident reports is really the only way to learn from the past, and prevent future incidents. Also, it is unnecessarily cruel to keep families of the victims waiting, some of whom who are engaged in lawsuits whose results won’t be determined until after the reports are released.
Airblue’s CEO did not appear in court, even though his presence was specifically requested by the court. A lawyer, Masood A Khan, appeared in his stead and requested more time.
In 2007 there was this Airbus A310 that failed to pass inspection in France and was therefore banned from French Airspace. The plane was still in use though. Yemenia Airlines quit flying the plane over French Airspace, limiting its routes to non-euro airspace like the hop from Sanaa to the Comoros.
Listen, I’ve heard some bad things about some planes but the descriptions I saw of this plane are so vivid I remember them, even though its been nearly five years. Frankly, the description sounded straight out of Romancing the Stone like the bus that takes Kathleen Turner (romance novelist Joan Wilder) to Cartagena, Colombia—crowded to the gills, livestock inside, seats rolling around, standing room only, everything that was portrayed in the movie, except (one hopes) people hanging off the outside of the plane. This rickety plane, which failed to meet safety standards continued to be in use until it crashed one stormy night in 2009.
Now, five years later, France is charging Yemenia Airlines with manslaughter.
I wonder at the timing. Apparently Yemenia Airlines is no longer on the EU banned list.
I wonder if they waited for Yemenia Airlines to become more solvent before they charged them.
I wonder if International Lease Finance Corporation is going to be held accountable. They leased the plane to Yemenia; and, like a father who hands his fifteen year old the keys to his car, they could have taken away the keys, or withheld them till the plane was brought up to code.
I wonder if the delay was five years worth of research, and maybe evidence found.
I wonder if another accident or enlightening incident happened that pointed the finger at Yemenia.
I wonder if it was pressure from the families of the 153 passengers and crew (and little Bahia Bakari the twelve year old miracle survivor) aboard that international flight from Sana’a, Yemen to Moroni, Comoros that crashed on 30 June 2009.
Pressure from the families brings change. I have a lot of confidence in family groups. Plane crash victims are united by a common cause, a cause which is ethical and pragmatic and yet impossible, because they are seeking justice when there can really be none. Because all these people want, if they could have their way, would be to have their loved ones back. They have the power of right on their side; and to make a galvanizing cause even more magnetic, they are fighting for the safety of every future airline passenger. I wish my friend Hans Ephraimson-Abt, who died last October, could be here to witness the charges being brought. He lost a daughter when her plane was shot down in 1983, and ever after made it his business to advocate for families. I think of him now because up until October, whenever I’d post an editorial concerning crashes, or family groups, he would always write back with encouragement, or some pithy bit of advice.
Maybe I should be objective. After all, helping families in crashes is my business. But when you’re on the front lines of aviation safety trying to get better treatment for victims and the families of victims, it doesn’t take long to feel very personal. There are a lot of people who saw those headlines that France is charging the carrier with manslaughter who think that after four and a half years, it is about time. I just hope that somehow the 152 victims—and Hans—could know that the responsible parties may yet be held accountable.
