Commercial Airline Crash Verdict

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Miller Weisbrod Olesky Obtains $16.9 Million Dollar Verdict

Commercial Airline Crash Verdict

Firm partner Clay Miller and his trial team traveled to Seattle, Washington for a 6 ½ week trial against an Alaska-based Airline. Following a hotly disputed trial, the jury returned a verdict for $16,900,000 for a Washington family against the Defendant Peninsula Aviation Services, Inc. (“Pen Air”) for a runway overrun crash that occurred in the Aleutian Islands.

The trial involved the first jury trial verdict against a commercial airline arising from an aviation crash in over 25 years. The verdict was also Clay Miller’s third 8-figure jury verdict in three different states over the past 7 seven years.

The lawsuit arose from a crash of a 50 person Saab 2000 airplane operated by Pen Air at Dutch Harbor airport located in the Aleutian Island on October 17, 2019.

The crash occurred during landing at Dutch Harbor (Unalaska) - an airport characterized by short runways, complex terrain, and high winds—the plane was unable to stop on the runway and overran both the runway and safety area crashing through a fence that surrounded the airport.

The plane then crossed over a road just outside the airport grounds and crashed into some rocks right on the edge of the water that surrounded the airport. The left propeller shattered on the rocks causing shrapnel to penetrate the cabin structure, fatally injuring our clients’ husband and father.

After the crash, it was determined that a brake contractor had cross-wired the anti-skid system on the plane’s brakes during an overhaul.

This mistake reduced the braking ability, but only when and if the anti-skids were needed for stopping the plane. There had been 500 landings since the overhaul and before the crash without any anti-skid failure. The difference on October 17th was Pen Air’s pilot attempted to land the plane with a tailwind causing the need for extremely hard braking to even have a chance to stop on the paved surface.

During the trial, we alleged the flight should have never departed on October 17th because Pen Air had numerous clues that the anti-skid system was not working correctly, including a fault code for the anti-skid system that occurred during a Dutch Harbor landing just 4 days earlier. We were able to prove, despite the denials of the pilots and the airline, that the pilots knowingly attempted to land with a tailwind based upon wind reports and the plane’s flight data recorder.

Evidence at trial included testimony from former Pen Air pilots that the pilot in command at the time of the crash had previously claimed he could land at Dutch Harbor (an airport with an extremely short runway) with a tailwind.

Throughout the six-week trial, Pen Air denied responsibility, instead attempting to shift blame to aircraft manufacturer Saab for failing to color code the wires to prevent cross-wiring and the State of Alaska as the airport operator for not removing objects outside the airport grounds, but on state property.

However, after nearly three full days of deliberation, the jury rejected these arguments and found Pen Air 70% at fault and an England based brake maintenance contractor, that had cross-wired the brakes during an overhaul 2 ½ years earlier, 30% at fault.

Prior to trial, the firm’s appellate and briefing lawyers Larry Lassiter and Garrett Stanford won a ruling that Pen Air was responsible for the brake contractor’s negligence because they had non-delegable duties with regard to maintenance.

As a result, Pen Air and it’s insurance carrier will be responsible for 100% of the verdict. Firm attorney Josh Birmingham put on the family’s testimony regarding their losses. This included testimony from the decedent’s family, numerous family friends as well as our client.

The jury verdict followed years of litigation that included multiple appeals regarding jurisdiction and forum arguments - each won by the firm’s appellate and briefing attorneys.