Alaska Injury Law Blog

An ERA Helicopters Eurocopter Arrow Star 350 B2 helicopter crashed in heavy weather conditions near Sheep Mountain on April 15, 2008, killing four people, and seriously injuring a 14-year-old boy. Killed in the crash were the pilot, Benoit Pin, and three employees of the Alaska Department of Administration, Michael D. Seward, Thomas E.Middleton, and Joseph C. O’Donnell. The flight was en route to a state telecommunications tower near Tahneta Pass when the crash occurred. The 14-year-old boy, Quinn Ellington, was found alive on Wednesday morning. Weather hampered the search for the craft, whose emergency locator transmitter went off on Tuesday at 1625 hours. An HC-130 and pararescue personnel on snow machines searched through the night until the crash site was located Wednesday morning approximately 120 miles northeast of Anchorage.

The NTSB is investigating the crash. The circumstances are similar to another crash of an ERA Aviation helicopter near Fire Island in October 2001, which occurred in heavy snow conditions. (Richard Vollertsen, of the Alaska Personal Injury Law Group, was lead counsel in that crash investigation: www.alaskainjurylawgroup.com/lawyer-attorney-1286823.html) The weather at the time of the Sheep Mountain crash included snow, rain and fog, and rescuers called it “blizzard conditions.” State of Alaska personnel have not yet explained why Ellington, Michael Seward’s stepson, was a passenger on a flight where state personnnel were performing maintenance on a transmission tower. The pilot, Benoit Pin, obtained his commercial helicopter license in 2001.

Source:
Federal Aviation Administration:
www.faa.gov/data_statistics/accident_incident/preliminary_data/media/K_0417_N.txt

Eurocopter Arrow Star 350:
www.eurocopterusa.com/Product/as350/as350.asp

Alaska State Troopers:
www.dps.state.ak.us/pio/dispatch/Trooper%20Dispatches%20of%2004-17-2008.20080417.txt

Anchorage Daily News:
www.adn.com

Allstate has finally made public its controversial "McKinsey Documents" which describe the development of its self-described "radical" claims handling program. Allstate made these documents public just days after a Florida court affirmed an order from the Florida Division of Insurance prohibiting Allstate from writing any new business in that state until it produced those documents to the Division of Insurance there. Download file The Alaska Personal Injury Law Group already has a copy of many of the McKinsey Documents, having obtained a court order requiring Allstate to produce them in litigation pending in Alaska. From these documents and other sources, the Alaska Personal Injury Law group is familiar with Allstate's self-described "radical" claims program designed by the international business consulting firm McKinsey & Company. According to Allstate records, this program has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in additional profit for Allstate's shareholders and executives. The program, called Claims Core Process Redesign or "CCPR," had three key components: (1) discouraging claimants from hiring attorneys because McKinsey's extensive closed-claim study showed that represented claimants, even after adjusting for the same type of claim, were paid far more than unrepresented claimants; (2) arbitrarily and systematically depressing claim valuations through a centrally "tuned" claims evaluation computer program with the not-so-friendly name of "Colossus;" and (3) vigorously litigating against claimants who did not submit to Allstate's new arbitrarily-lowered claim valuations (candidly called the "Boxing Gloves" treatment by McKinsey and Allstate, as contrasted with the "Good Hands" treatment given to claimants who agreed to Allstate's valuations). For the last 10 years, Allstate has doggedly refused to produce the McKinsey Documents in cases alleging bad faith claims handling. In the few cases in which courts have ordered Allstate to produce the McKinsey Documents (like one currently being handled by the Alaska Personal Injury Law Group), the court imposed strict confidentially rules based on Allstate's claim that the documents were allegedly important trade secrets. Allstate produced 12,929 pages of McKinsey Documents to the Alaska Personal Injury Law Group under protective order. The Alaska Injury Law Group is now looking forward to using these documents without the burdensome confidentiality restrictions previously advocated by Allstate.