Alaska Injury Law Blog

The Alaska Personal Injury Law Group recently obtained a favorable ruling on a matter of great importance for aviation law in Alaska. Apparently reversing a prior contrary decision, the Federal District Court ruled that aviation wrongful death and personal injury claims cannot normally be transferred ("removed") from Alaska State Courts to the Federal District Court at the request of the defendant.

The Alaska Personal Injury Law Group (APILG) has extensive experience in the area of aviation accident litigation. APILG Attorney Neil O'Donnell, representing Port Heiden resident Ted Matson, filed a wrongful death action for the loss of Mr. Matson's wife in the crash of a Peninsula Airways ("PenAir") Piper Saratoga near Port Heiden. The wrongful death action was filed in the Alaska Superior Court in Naknek, the court closest to Port Heiden and closest to the aircraft crash site. PenAir, however, transferred ("removed") the case to the Federal District Court in Anchorage arguing that a recent Ninth Circuit decision, Montalvo v. Spirit Airlines, 508 F.3d 464 (9th Cir. 2007), made all aviation-related wrongful death and personal injury claims removable to federal court. The Federal District Court in Alaska had previously agreed with this argument in another aviation personal injury case (not handled by the Alaska Personal Injury Law Group) that had been removed from the Alaska Superior Court in Bethel. Alexie v. Hageland Aviation, Case No. 4:07-cv-0031-RRB.

The effect of the Alexie case would have been to allow any defendant to transfer any aviation-related death or injury claim out of the Alaska State Courts and into the Federal District Court in Anchorage, Fairbanks or Juneau. Plaintiffs in rural Alaska often want their cases heard in local state courts for both practical and strategic reasons. For example, local rural jurors appreciate the importance of lost subsistence services, often a major portion of a rural plaintiff's economic damages. Juries in federal court must also reach a unanimous verdict. Since the plaintiff has the burden of proof, one or two "holdout" jurors can derail what would otherwise have been a persuasive and successful claim. In contrast, juries in Alaska State Courts can return a verdict based on the vote of only 10 of the 12 jurors.

The Alaska Personal Injury Group was able to convince the Federal District Court that the correct rule is that aviation wrongful death and personal injury claims are not normally removable from state court to federal court. The Federal District Court accordingly ruled that "for the reasons argued by plaintiff," Mr. Matson's case must be returned to Alaska State Court.

The NTSB has issued its findings as to the cause of the July 24, 2007 de Havilland Beaver airplane crash near Ketchikan. The crash killed the pilot and four passengers. The NTSB faulted the FAA's supervision of tour operators and recommended a system of weather information to aid pilots in making in-flight decisions. While Taquan Air Service's pilot had commerical aviation experience, he had only 7 hours of flight time in Alaska when he was hired. The NTSB found that the pilot improperly continued VFR flight in IFR conditions and did not adequately evaluate the deteriorating weather conditions.

Source:
Anchorage Daily News:
http://www.adn.com/news/alaska/story/494553.html

National Transportation Safety Board:
http://www.ntsb.gov/ntsb/brief.asp?ev_id=20070801X01084&key=1

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

On January 5, 2008, a Servant Air Piper Navajo Chieftain with 10 people aboard crashed shortly after take off from Kodiak, Alaska. The pilot and five passengers tragically died in the crash. Surviving passengers reported that a baggage door popped open shortly after takeoff and the pilot was attempting to return to the airport. The National Transportation Safety Bureau (NTSB) is investigating the crash. Based on recent NTSB investigations in Alaska, that may take awhile. I represented a family who lost a loved one in the crash of a PenAir Cessna Caravan 208 shortly after takeoff from the Dillingham airport on October 10, 2001. The pilot and nine passengers died in that crash. The NTSB did not release its probable cause determination until January 23, 2003 -- 15 months after the crash. I am presently representing a family who lost a loved one in the crash of a PenAir Piper Saratoga PA-32 shortly after takeoff from the Pt. Heiden airport on December 14, 2006. The NTSB recently released its "factual report" on that accident just over one year after the crash. The NTSB has yet to make its probable cause determination. This illustrates why it is important for families to promptly hire counsel to independently investigate an accident and not to wait a year or more to see what the NTSB concludes about the accident. The families who have lost a loved one will typically not know what the NTSB has been up to for a year or more. In the meantime, important evidence may be lost and important witnesses may have disappeared.