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Lone Survivor On Trial


Air Station Crew makes memorial flight for fallen crew

What: United States Coast Guard (USCG) Sitka CGAS Sikorsky MH-60T Jayhawk 6017
Where: 9:30 a.m. off James Island near the mouth of the Quillayute River at the northwest tip of Washington state. Pacific ocean near La Push, Washington
When: July 2010
Who: fatalities: pilot Lt. Sean D. Krueger, Petty Officer 1st Class Adam Hoke and Aviation Mechanic Technician 2nd Class Brett M. Banks
Why: The co-pilot of the MH-60 Jayhawk that crashed killing the rest of the crew is being charged with five counts: two counts of negligent homicide, two counts of dereliction of duty and destruction of government property.

Lt. Lance Leone is the only survivor of the crash of the Jayhawk that went down after hitting power lines in Sitka Alaska. Afterwards, he was airlifted from Forks to Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center. In that crash, he suffered a broken arm and a broken leg. His decorations include Coast Guard Commendation Medal, Coast Guard Achievement Medal, two Coast Guard Unit Commendation Medals, Coast Guard Meritorious Unit Commendation, Coast Guard Meritorious Team Commendation, Global War Terror Service Medal, Commandant’s Letter of Commendation, Coast Guard “E” Ribbon, National Defense Service Medal, Armed Forces Expeditionary Medal, Coast Guard Special Operations Service Ribbon, Coast Guard Presidential Unit Citation, Coast Guard Sea Service Ribbon, Transportation 9-11 Ribbon, Coast Guard Rifle Sharpshooter Ribbon, Coast Guard Pistol Marksman Ribbon.

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    17.8 Million Awarded to Surviving Family

    What: F/A-18 Military Jet from the carrier Abraham Lincoln landing at Marine Corps Air Station Miramir
    Where: San Diego neighborhood
    When: DEC 8, 2008
    Who: Young Mi Yoon, 36; her daughters Grace, 15 months, and Rachel, 2 months; and her mother, Suk Im Kim, 60.
    Why: A witness said the plane was chugging along with what seemed like one engine. Then…”roar of engine and all of a sudden, woop, dead silence.”

    In George’s Point of View


    Dead Silence. The rogue jet flattened a house, silenced four lives, and stole the joy from the lifetime of tomorrows of Don Yoon (who lost his wife, daughters and mother-in-law), Jun Hwa Lee (who lost his mother, sister and nieces), Sanghyun Lee (who lost his wife, daughter and grandchildren.) Maybe it’s a cheap trick to keep repeating Young Mi, Grace, Rachel and Suk Im Kim in multiple incarnations, but like all of us, they were composed of all the hats they wore, and their lives touched a lot of people; and I don’t regret the repetition. I’m wishing I knew the names of poor Young Mi’s two siblings, so I could repeat the relationships twice more. How better to express that those four lives lost are ever so much more than we can define?

    Where there had once been plans of a Korean family wedding, the joy of cousins, reunion of generations, and decades of Christmases like the one just past, for Don Yoon and his in-laws, there’s now only pain, and following that, an immeasurable vacuum. I guess there’s no point on my dwelling on how great the loss, or the irony. Don Yoon came to the US at 18 to build a better life, and one minute before that jet crashed, he had the American dream.

    I guess you could say it went from dream to nightmare. The three years since that crash have ended with the U.S. District Court in San Diego awarding the surviving family members $17.8 million. I don’t need to be a gambler to know that they would trade every penny to have their family back.

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    Skydiving Crash Victims Awarded by Jury


    Doncasters Inc. of London is a manufacturer of aviation components. They were recently held accountable for the death of five victims of the crash of a DeHavilland DHC-6 Twin Otter, the skydiving plane which exploded at the Sullivan airport.

    Six people were killed: Melissa Berridge, 38, of St. Louis; Victoria Delacroix, 22, of London; Robert Cook, 22, of Rolla, Mo.; Rob Walsh, 44, of St. Louis; Scott Cowan, 42, of St. Louis were awarded four million each, and a portion of $28 million in punitive damages.

    David Aternoster, 35, also died in the crash but his relatives were not part of the lawsuit. Jim and Scott Cowan, owners of Quantum Leap Skydiving were piloting.

    Eight engine failures are believed to be due to a defective Doncasters part according to aviation experts, air crash investigators, metallurgists and aircraft design engineers.

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    Back in Court over Mangalore Ruling

    Tuesday, ruling about the May 2010 Boeing crash in Mangalore,India, the Indian Supreme Court apex court bench issued a notice to Air India and the government on a petition seeking a minimum compensation of Rs 75 lakh for each of the 158 passengers.

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    The court final hearing of the case is scheduled in April.

    Read More Mangalore Crash: Air India Express Boeing 737-800

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    Lawsuit Filed in Jenni Rivera Crash

    The family of the victims (Arturo Rivera, makeup artist Jacob Yebale, attorney Mario Macias Pacheco and hair dresser Jorge “Gigi” Armando Sanchez Vasquez) of a 43-year-old Learjet that crashed in Mexico on December 9 have filed a negligence suit against Starwood Management LLC, Rodatz Financial Group Inc., McOco Inc. and Jenni Rivera Enterprises Inc.

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    Tam Air Crash Lawsuit

    A complaint filed by his family on behalf of Ricardo Tazoe, in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida, also names European jet manufacturer Airbus, the Goodrich Corp, and International Aero Engines (IAE) as defendants. The Miami resident died in an Airbus crash in Sao Paulo.

    198 other people who were killed when the Tam Airbus A320 skidded off a rainy runway at Sao Paulo’s Congonhas Airport.

    TAM is charged with negligence. The plane should have been grounded because one of its thrust reversers was not working. Defendants include Goodrich, the manufacturer of the aircraft’s braking system and IAE, which assembled the plane’s engine.

    “From the evidence gathered so far, it’s clear that TAM knew there were problems with the aircraft,” Steven C. Marks, an attorney at Miami law firm Podhurst Orseck, said in the statement. “Had (the thrust reverser) been operational, it may have prevented this accident.”

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    IAE is United Technologies Corp. Pratt & Whitney, Britain’s Rolls-Royce Plc, Japan’s Aero Engines Corp. and Germany’s MTU Aero Engones.

    The firm that filed the suit is also representing several families in a suit concerning an earlier crash in the Amazon this year.

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