Deadly Plane Crash Results in $5.4M Judgment Against U.S.

A federal judge in Virginia has issued a $5.4 million judgment against the U.S. government after finding that an air traffic controller was negligent for a deadly midair crash involving three experienced pilots, including the former chief medical officer of the U.S. National Transportation Safety Board.

Thursday’s judgment awarded damages to the widow of an FAA-certified flight instructor, who was conducting a flight training review of the NTSB official, James Duncan, when both were killed in the 2012 crash. The pilot of the other plane, Thomas Proven, who is an accident investigator for the FAA, survived.
“It’s one of the cases that continue to show you’ve got to be diligent as an air traffic controller because you really do have other people’s lives in your hands,” said Jim Beasley, managing member of The Beasley Firm in Philadelphia, who represented Joyce Gardella.
Lawyers from the Justice Department and the U.S. attorney’s office in the Eastern District of Virginia defended the air traffic controller in the case. Calls to both offices weren’t returned.
Gardella’s husband, Paul Gardella, the passenger in a Beechcraft V35B Bonanza, and Duncan, the pilot, took off from Warrenton-Fauquier Airport in Warrenton, Virginia. Proven was heading to that airport in a Piper PA-28 Cherokee.
The air traffic controller, Shane Keenley, received a conflict alert involving the two aircraft but, determining that both were still 500 feet apart, did not warn the pilots.
In 2014, the Transportation Safety Board of Canada, which investigated the crash due to the involvement of NTSB and FAA officials, concluded that the pilots had failed to see each other.
Joyce Gardella sued last year under Virginia’s Wrongful Death Act claiming the U.S. government was liable under the Federal Tort Claims Act. DOJ lawyers argued that her husband should have seen the other aircraft.
U.S. District Judge Liam O’Grady, who conducted a bench trial in November, disagreed.
“Mr. Keenley did not use his best judgment when he decided that issuing a safety alert was not necessary in this case,” O’Grady of the Eastern District of Virginia wrote.
O’Grady also concluded that Gardella’s own negligence did not contribute to his death—an important ruling that allowed his wife to get one of the highest damages amounts in a Virginia plane crash against the U.S. government, Beasley said
“The law in Virginia is very tough,” he said. “If you’re even remotely contributory negligent, that’s a bar to your recovery. That’s one reason why the government pushed so hard to claim contributory negligence.”
Damages included $1.2 million in lost income and $2.3 million in emotional damages to Gardella’s wife, plus $500,000 to each of his three adult children.
Proven, who sued last year for $250,000 in injuries and loss of his plane, settled with the U.S. government on Sept. 17.



(culled from http://www.nationallawjournal.com)