A little over the top...

[jrpilot]

Well someone is going to sue Air France for $75 million, it might be in Canadian money which is about $66 million.  I mean come on what has happened to this world  :-/.  That is over the top


http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/natio... ... 50806.html

[Jimbo]

I'm afraid that link doesn't work jrpilot.

Cheers.

James

[beefhole]

Yeah jr, that link's pretty fragmented.

But I already don't like the sound of it ::) People will make money off of anything they possbily can these days, there is absolutely no moral code for this type of thing

[Jimbo]

Yeah jr, that link's pretty fragmented.

But I already don't like the sound of it ::) People will make money off of anything they possbily can these days, there is absolutely no moral code for this type of thing

I 100% agree with you on that.

[Craig.]

If this is a passenger bringing up this lawsuit, then yes they have every right to sue. If it is someone not directly involved with the accident then no they dont.

[jrpilot]

Sorry on the link.

CraigL don't you think that $75 million is a little to much?  I know they have a every right to sue.  Maybe you would sue for that much but me personally I wouldn't.

[Craig.]

Depends on how you look at it really. This is a situation that would scare the crap out of anyone, and dont say it wouldn't because "i'm an aviation expert" i'll be the first to take the lead and say it would me. Now some people it might screw up real bad, there have been cases where a person has never been able to get on a plane again, or has even had an effect on some people that has caused them to be unable to leave the house or work again. Would i sue for that much? i hope i never have to be in that position to find out, firstly if it did screw me up i would go seek help to gt over it if possible. Only then would i consider it. This will be covered by the airlines insurance if the case is sucessful and its likely the court will bring down the final money total anyway. This isnt a hot coffee on the lap or moron who couldn't read a wet floor sign incident.

[beefhole]

Craig, the difference here is that it wasn't the airlines fault-hell, you could have a debate as to whether it was the pilot's fault or not (whether they should've diverted or not).

I always say-when judging a decision, the outcome of the decision does not matter at all, it has absolutely no bearing on the making of the decision itself.  

The only thing that matters when judging a decision is the set of circumstances the decision was made under-perhaps the pilots had been told that there wouldnt be any tstorms over the airport, that they could be vectored through, perhaps the pilots had shot a gazillion tstorm approaches, etc.

Basically, the right decision can have the wrong outcome-it's still the right decision.

I was just forced to execute an extremely dangerous approach into West Palm beach Int'l, hitting pockets of extreme turbulence and descending directly through tstorms with strikes all around me-seconds before I touched down, the airport was struck by lightning, just to the right of the runway.

I had three possible weather diverts, I knew about these conditions an hour before I touched down, and I have no problems with diverting-I've done it before.

So why didn't I?

Because the entire ****ing eastern seaboard is one big tstorm right now.  There wasnt a single viable alternate within my fuel range (I had taken on an extra 8,000 lbs just in case this type of thing happened), not even Atlanta was looking good.  Therefore, I made the decision to continue with the approach.

One way or the other, its not the airlines fault-sue mother nature, take the pilots to civil court, whatever.

[Craig.]

While i see your point Beef i beg to differ that it isn't the airlines fault. The pilots are the airline, the pilots are trained by the airline to the airlines requirements and standards in all company procedures. In your case you are a private pilot still learning i assume, and were on your own. This was a personal choice which effected you and most likely few others, if you had your instructor with you, it would have been his desicion ultimately. The Airlines training goes beyond that of standard flight rules and has pilots use what they learned intermixed with what the airline requires of them. I see the pilots being sued seperatley if the case against the airline isn't successful, but for all concerned it is better that the airline accepts blame in this case and take the insurance hit. If the pilots are sued theres a good chance alot of Air France's policies will be revealed which may or may not be twisted to help the pilots in a civil case.

[beefhole]

Craig I just flew that flight an hour ago in the POSKY 752-but it still applies lmao

(although we did have tstorms closing in on us on my last xcountry)

I forget to put in a bit about the airlines training the pilots-yes, they trained them, but they're not the ones who made the game-time decision... of course, you could still say that the decision that was made was as a result of the airlines training, but I really think thats reaching a bit far.

[Craig.]

LOL whatever as far as your flight goes, even less effected then:) but still a conscious desicion on your part.

Its not reaching at all, to say its the airlines training that effected his judgement. That would be like saying, heres your training and what we would like you to do, but dont worry if you choose to do something else this is just for fun. Its that same training which ultimately protects the pilots from being sued directly in cases like this. Could your insurance cover this type of case?

[beefhole]

It just seems to me like the decision to descend into a thunderstorm or not is immensly personal-there are no hard and fast rules on when to and when not to descend into tstorms-and if there are, they are often blatantly disregarded, ops in tstorms are rather common.  It's kind of like the "go/no go" decison for a private pilot, it's really mainly the personality of the pilot that's going to influence the decision, not necissarily what the manual says. (imho)

[Craig.]

In the end, they cant proceed with this case until the case is closed by the transportation safety board in Canada, and a full report giving reasons for crash is released. For all we know the weather when the pilots were on approach could have been pretty good for landing, that can change quickly. I did actually say to someone a few minutes after, they were lucky it was Canada, had this been the US the first thing the passengers would have seen while getting off the plane would have been lawyers not fire and rescue vehicles.

[beefhole]

I did actually say to someone a few minutes after, they were lucky it was Canada, had this been the US the first thing the passengers would have seen while getting off the plane would have been lawyers not fire and rescue vehicles.

Unfortunately, that's not far from the truth

[Hagar]

This is the reason for all the insurance legislation private owners & warbird operators have been complaining about. In Europe some privately owned display aircraft are now in the same insurance category as a Boeing 737 although they carry no passengers. I read this legislation is likely to be introduced in the US soon.