Passengers who have received some of their luggage say they are grateful, but not all of them are ready to absolve US Airways of responsibility for injuries, emotional distress and losses they claim to have suffered.
The airline’s insurance company, A.I.G. Aviation Adjustment Services, has started offering each of the passengers $10,000 in exchange for agreeing not to sue the airline, some passengers said. Ms. Lightner, who lives in Tega Cay, S.C., said she had received a two-page contract from the insurer but had not decided whether to sign it.
NY Times, May 18, 2009
Everybody has heard how the heroic captain, Chelsey Sullenberger, landed his crippled Airbus A320 safely into the Hudson River, January 15 this year. The Airbus320 struck some large birds– Canada geese– as it was taking off from LaGuardia Airport, New York City. The geese were sucked into both engines causing catastrophic failure. The jet was not high enough to glide for any distance and, after a brief, hair-raising exchange with the LaGuardia air controllers, Sullenberger safely glided the A320 to a landing in the Hudson River. All passengers and crews were rescued by ferry boats and other craft that reached the plane within four minutes.
Nobody is suing the geese.
The passengers have been offered $10,000 by the airlines. For what? I don’t know. It sounds to me very much like an accident. Usually, passengers sue an airline if a plane crashes due to some incompetence or negligence. On the surface, it appears, to the contrary, that the cause of the crash was an unavoidable accident, that the crash was not caused by any deficiency in the Airbus 320, and that the crew of Flight 1549 performed extremely well. Who do you sue?
Well, if you’re a lawyer, I imagine you could make the case that the airline should be responsible for the general existence of risks and accidents.
It doesn’t seem to matter nowadays. For one thing, lawyers seem to believe that every lawsuit, no matter how frivolous, should be negotiated and settled with an undisclosed amount of cash and a confidentiality agreement. This is usually cheaper than going to court. The lawyers suing on behalf of the passengers know this and hope to score a big fat settlement quickly and bloodlessly, because the negotiators for the airlines are other lawyers.
Could it be that there is no negligence, no fault of the airlines. Just a bunch of lawyers arranging a deal together that benefits them more than anyone else.
The Ditch Switch
“The Flight crew did not activate the “ditch switch” during the landing.” Wikipedia
The function of the ditch switch is to close all external outlets and openings in the event of a crash landing on water, to prevent the aircraft from sinking too quickly. In all the coverage of the event immediately afterwards, I never heard this mentioned even once. For all the accolades Sullenberger received, he apparently forgot to do something important: hit the ditch switch. Had there been loss of life, because the aircraft sank quickly after ditching, and had the cargo doors not been ripped open anyway, this fact would probably have been pivotal to our assessment of Captain Sullenberger’s performance.
It wasn’t his only mistake: he initially gave Air Traffic Control the incorrect flight number. None of this alters the fact that Sullenberger performed extremely well doing the one thing he is really paid to do: land the plane safely.
June 15: I just saw a documentary on Flight 1549 which noted the issue of the “ditch switch” and claimed that the air plane was sinking quickly at least partly because of that mistake.
I have not read anywhere that anyone thinks the crew of Flight 1549 should have been able to avoid the flock of Canadian Geese. Can they do that? Do they watch for flocks of geese, from the air traffic control tower for this reason?
I do know that they do take some measures to discourage birds from hanging around near the runways. Would that be the basis of a lawsuit? They didn’t do enough to stop the geese from flying into the path of an airliner?