A Quebec man was killed when he crashed his plane into a telecommunications tower three years ago, and now the US company who owned the tower is suing his family for $2.5 million because the tower had to be demolished and rebuilt.
I’m sure that the company is within its legal rights, but I think it’s sick that this family will have to either declare bankruptcy or fight a long and expensive legal battle.
Why sue them? It’s not like it was their fault.
Oh, that is so very sad. It’s dispicable if they get away with it.
You know, I just typed up a long missive on how, sad as it may be, it’s still within this corporation’s right to sue. I raised some (IMHO) very good questions and made some thoughtful debate points.
Then I realized I hadn’t actually read the article.
After reading it, my position now switches to: Fugg’em. This company is in financial trouble, but do they seriously think that bankrupting the family of someone who (inadvertantly) caused them financial harm three fricking years ago is going to help their situation?
One thing I’m not understanding – don’t plane operators need insurance, the same way automobile drivers do? I see the article talks about the pilot having one million dollars in insurance, but I take that to mean life insurance.
Now, since the company paid $182,000 to demolish the tower in 2001, why didn’t they go after the pilot’s insurance company then? And how in the hell do they justify “…the cost of demolishing the tower was estimated in 2001 to be $182,000. Now the company thinks it should be reimbursed $1.3 million.”?? What, do they need $1,118,000 for “pain and suffering” or something? Sheesh…
As an aside – My God, having your loved one’s body dangling from a tower for five days? I can’t even find words for how awful that must’ve been…
I’m guessing the extra $1.1 million was for rebuilding and lost income.
Just a what if: had the tables been reversed and an individual had waited three years to sue a corporation, would everyone’s opinion be different?
If the pilot was being negligent, then you certainly have a valid claim against him if he destroys your property. If the guy dies, then the claim may be made against his estate. The article doesn’t mention if the crash was his fault (or if fault was ever declared). But if it is, then the family’s going to probably be out some cash.
The company certainly deserves to be compensated for their actual damages or the total value of the man’s estate which ever is less. How is this concept so difficult to grasp?
Haj
The above, of course, assumes that the pilot was negligent.
Haj
It’s not required in the US, I don’t know for sure about Canada.
I was always taught that if I’m going to crash, hit the softest, cheapest thing I can find, as slowly as possible.
I could possibly see the company suing for $1 million, the same amount of the deceased insurance. If the people that you’re suing would have to declare bankruptcy, what the hell’s the point? You’ve just ruined them for no gain.
Regardless of the legality and the practicallity, it just seems incredibly calous. I can’t imagine sitting in a board meeting and saying “Our company is going into the shitter - why don’t we sue the familly of the guy who wrecked out tower?” Ick.
I don’t understand why the tower itself wasn’t insured.
I know this must hit close to home for you.
I gather then, that the tower owners didn’t have insurance. Otherwise, the insurance company would be suing the estate.
I would have to say it is pretty lame for the company to sue . The PR will kill them.
That aside, if the pilot was in IFR conditions then he was also under a flight plan and the directions of flight controllers. If he wasn’t then he really screwed up. The requirements for towers under 500 feet are different than taller structures. They don’t require strobe lights, just a blinking red light. Put a tower like that on a hill and you have a problem. Almost found that out the hard way.
The directors of a corporation owe a duty to the shareholders to manage the company in a prudent fashion. If the company has been harmed to the tune of over a million dollars (a point not yet proved, but I think we have to assume for the purposes of this discussion that the company has at least some basis for that assessment), then the directors have a duty to try to recoup that loss. That applies with even more force if the corporation is in financial trouble - their duty to the shareholders is to keep the corporation functioning. The directors may have some discretion with smaller claims, but the size of this claim probably dictates that they must take every step possible to recover.
It may well have been. However, insurance policies provide that if the insurance company pays out, and there is an arguable claim against someone else who caused the damage, then the insurance company has the right to sue in the name of the policy holder to try to recover the loss. So if the tower was insured, and the insurance company paid the loss to the owner of the tower, the insurance company now has the right to bring the lawsuit in the owner’s name to try to recover the loss.
It doesn’t work that way. It’s the owner of the insured property who has the claim against the person who damaged the property. There’s no direct relationship between the insurance company and the person who damaged the property. For that reason, insurance contracts almost always contain a subrogation clause: once the insurance company pays the claim to the owner of the property, the insurance company has the right to sue in the name of the property owner to try to recover the loss.
He could have been operating IFR in uncontrolled airspace. But, as we all know, what’s legal ain’t always smart.
Canadian regs may be different, though.
Isn’t that what I was trying to convey? If the tower were insured then the owner would have been compensated by the insurance company, who then would go after the pilot.
The insurance company would then sue the pilot to recover its money. They would sue in the name of the company that owned the tower.
Haj
IIRC, declaring bankruptcy won’t get you out from under a judgment. I could wrong, though.
It may be a requirement of their insurance company that they have to sue in order to settle their claim.
A question for those who are saying that the company should simply absorb the financial loss: would you say the same thing if the tower had been someone’s private property? E.g. let’s say that someone crashes their plane into your house, causing you $1 million in damages (including the cost of living somewhere else while the house is being rebuilt). Would you try to get the money back from the guy’s estate, or not?
Unfortunately, for purposes of this discussion, I couldn’t find this accident in the NTSB database or any information on the airport in question. Which means we have limited facts to go on here.
No.
Now, some airports require you to have insurance to base your airplane at their location, but that varies from airport to airport. If you choose, you can forgo insurance and “fly naked”. However, this is becoming less common, in part because of lawsuits like this one.
Nope, probably not.
First of all, as soon as you get a pilot’s license your ability to buy life insurance just went down the crapper. It can be very difficult for a small plane pilot to obtain life insurance, and if you do, frequently there will be a clause saying the insurance company is off the hook if you get killed in a general aviation airplane. In fact, that rider isn’t too unusual in life insurance policies for non-pilots as well.
One million dollars is a typical amount for a liability policy for a pilot. Which, I might point out, would adequately cover the originally named $182,000 to demolish the tower. I don’t know if it would have covered rebuilding as well - and if they’re charging for rebuilding that might account for the higher number.
>cough< Yeah, death by aviation can have its horrific aspects. I’ll spare you some of the stories I’ve heard.
In aviation crashes, the tendency is to assume the pilot is at fault until proven otherwise - and sometimes not even then.
Canada and the US are currently using the same alphabet classifications of airspace - A, B, C, D, E, F, and G (although the US does not use F, Canada does). Each of those designations have internationally agreed upon characteristics and requirements, so there should be more similarities than differences between the US and Canada in regards to those particular regs.
Anyhow - if there was dense fog he probably should have been on a flight plan with an IFR clearance. Let’s assume he was until proven otherwise. Even under those circumstances, he may not be under direct ATC control during take-off. I’ll point out that I’m talking about US procedures here, but if you take off IFR from a non-towered field, you’re on your own until you’re high enough to appear on ATC radar - around here, that’s about 800 feet above the ground. So, for that first 800 feet YOU are responsible for avoiding solid objects. If the Canadians operate the same way, and the field was non-towered, colliding with a tower 300 feet above the ground may have nothing to do with ATC, it may be the pilot failed to maintain a proper heading - in which case, yes, the responsibility rests with the pilot.
Even if he IS under direct ATC control, it is still his responsibility to NOT obey any order that would put him into danger (and yes, a pilot does have the right and duty to say “can not comply”). In which case… it’s his fault for smacking into the tower.
Proper approach and departure procedures to avoid obstacles are published and easily available for virtually all airports in North America. It is the pilot’s responsibility to be famillar with these when they are needed, and even many VFR pilots such as myself are famillar with the IFR procedures used at the airports we frequent. This is not super-secret stuff.
Of course, then there’s the problem of why are people building towers near the approach and departure paths of airports, but that’s a slightly different issue.
So… the upshot is, the pilot probably IS legally responsible and the company probably does have a legal option to sue.
This is a risk we take as pilots - that if we f**k up there can be financial as well as physical consequences. However, there is ALSO the problem that many people also assume that if you are a pilot you must also be extremely wealthy (it helps, but it’s not necessary). Ain’t necessarially so - myself, I earn a good salary, but it’s under $50,000 a year which means darn few would consider me “rich” and I sure as heck am no millionaire. So it might also be that someone at this company assumes there must be great wealth in the guy’s family and is looking to rake some of it in. The truth may be the man might have had no life insurance, have died in debt up to his eyebrows, and his family may be on welfare at this point. The truth is, we just don’t know.