You guys wanna hear about the dumbest thing I've heard in a long time?

"A 3-year-old who witnessed the crash of Flight 587 in the Rockaways is now too traumatized to hug his dad, an NYPD deputy inspector, the family's lawyer said yesterday. Lawyer Frank Daly filed a lawsuit against Airbus Industrie - maker of the doomed plane - and American Airlines yesterday in Brooklyn federal court for unspecified damages on behalf of Michael Morley Sr. and his son Michael Jr. It's the first crash-related lawsuit filed by a resident of Belle Harbor, where the jet came down. Flight 587 crashed after takeoff from Kennedy Airport Nov. 12, killing all 260 people on board and five on the ground. It was bound for the Dominican Republic. On that morning, the little boy watched in horror as the plane crashed on Beach 131st Street."

Okay, lawyers, especially, forgive me saying this, but -- people are getting far too sue-happy!

Sometimes, I hate people. Especially the stupid ones.

So, attorneys -- please, please tell me that they can't win this case...

Of course this idiot can't win. Imagine if this went though? Could you imagine what type of law suits would open up? I could sue if I witnessed a car accident. Or how about witnessing a plane crash on TV? That could change my life forever. We'll couldn't it? The people are idiots! Excuse me, while I sue ABC, NBC and CBS because they showed the plane crash into the twin towers. I can't go on!!

Stand him up against a wall and shoot him for wasting everybody's time. Hey, he wouldn't be suffering anymore, right?

Before you rise up and kill all the lawyers, the answer is: This case may or may not be thrown out. I say that because, as with most media accounts of a case, we don't have all the relevant facts.

What I do know for sure is that New York follows the traditional rule in such "bystander emotional trauma" cases, which is that you can't recover damages unless you were in the "zone of danger" of being physically injured yourself. A classic example would be you and a friend crossing a street and the car hitting your friend who was walking right next to you but just missing you. The zone of danger rule exists precisely for the reasons suggested in this thread, e.g., to keep everybody who witnessed the planes plowing into the Twin Towers on TV from suing.

Applying the zone of danger rule to this 3-year-old, the answer, as I say, is we don't know from that story. Find out how close that kid was standing to where the plane came down and you'll have a much better idea.

Excellent, thanks Jason, I'll be sure to stand 3 feet away from you when they "kill all the lawyers", that way my trauma can set me up for life financially.

Bub, if you enjoy it, you can't collect a dime.

"Bub, if you enjoy it, you can't collect a dime."

Not to mention that if all the lawyers are dead, there's no one left to speak for you.

You guys kill me, 3 feet away. Bawhahaha.

They should get the family of somebody who died on the flight to beat the shit out of the lawyer. I hate airlines and Airbus as much as the next guy, but it's not like the *want* their planes falling from the sky. I'm sure it was a horrible thing for a child to witness, but you've got to just thank your lucky stars you didn't die.

Brad Grenz

Can't the families sue American if it's discovered that the plane wasn't really fit to fly? I remember them saying it had a lengthy maintenance stay the night before and it also held up the flight when it was ready to depart?

--Dave

"Can't the families sue American if it's discovered that the plane wasn't really fit to fly?"

Yes, and I'm sure they will, if they haven't already.

Actually, Dave, the FAA was right alongside AA mechanics as they did the maintenance checks. Everything met regulations. The problem is actually the fact that Airbus makes their tails out of an alloy, as opposed to the traditional aluminum, that just doesn't hold up as well. There's no way to tell when it's gonna go, and nothing really that can be done about it. So, if anyone's at fault -- and that's debatable, as no-one even knew this problem existed until a couple of weeks ago, it's Airbus.

I'm not usually one to say things like this, being in the travel industry and all, but -- you won't catch me on one of THOSE planes. While they still have a highly favorable safety record, they're more prone than any other plane to go down.

Wait a minute, what about the failure of the pilots to maintain proper spacing between departing jets? Last I heard that was the main culprit, turbulence from a JAL heavy taking off right before the fated plane.

And Murph, I hope that if I won't catch you in one of THOSE planes that I also won't catch you in ANY automobile. You do know that your chances of being killed in an auto accident are still astronomically higher than in a plane crash, right? Yes, even an Airbus.

:)

Yeah, I thought the downed plane ended up passing through the jetwash of an earlier takeoff. Wouldn't that put some blame on the airport, the pilots, and the air-traffic controllers for por flight routing?

That would make it mainly the air-traffic controller's fault, if that were the case. I hadn't heard that.
Actually, my biggest concern is this (but you didn't hear this from me, okay?): After the plane came down, all the A-300's had to undergo SERIOUS inspection in like a week (maybe less -- this made my wife's job hell, as she had to make sure they all got to JFK for the inspection...) with the FAA right there. They all checked out fine. Mainly, they were checking out the tails, and a certain few bolts that were suspect.

Three days after the inspection was complete, a plane had to air-interrupt (return to station of departure fifteen or twenty minutes into the flight, I believe -- or maybe another station. Can't remember) in Lima because the tail started shaking REALLY badly, and the pilot thought the plane was coming down. Honestly, my wife and I were surprised that they didn't ground the whole fleet -- which they'd already talked about doing twice -- in the world. But, perhaps it's a moot point, as nothing's come about since then. It didn't get much -- maybe none at all -- media coverage, but it really freaked out a lot of people who knew.

I know, Lando, that it's STILL safer, statistically, than driving a car, and I have no problem flying. I just know that those planes have issues...Maybe I was being a little melodramatic, but...I'm not eager to fly one. How's that? (Not that I did often, anyway.)

Lando,

The following was a bit tight, but that was incidental. Even if they'd been at the proper 2 minute sep they probably would have still had some wake turbulence. And the way these things are designed, the tail should be able to handle a LOT more than the worst wake turbulence. The wake turbulence was the catalyst, but the following distance was not the cause of this crash.

As for the statistics about driving vs. airline safety, they're skewed to make the airline industry look good. If you compare MILES traveled, yep, it's safer. If you compare HOURS spent in vehicles, flying is a hell of a lot more dangerous than driving.

What's your source, Sparkman?

And you know what they say about lies, damned lies and statistics, right?

Still, I fail to see how HOURS spent in vehicles is a valid measure, or at least a meaningful one. Why don't we look at number of incidents? Of course, one has to take into accounts the number of people driving or flying. Either way, I could care less. Really, when it is all said and done, when it is your time to go, there's not going to be a lot you can do about it. Whether it's crashing into an Iowa cornfield or being smashed into by a drunken driver, either way you're dead.

A telling note to me is that if you apply for life insurance, they ask plenty of questions about your driving record and none about airline trips. =)

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Quote:

and none about airline trips.

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"Still, I fail to see how HOURS spent in vehicles is a valid measure, or at least a meaningful one. Why don't we look at number of incidents? Of course, one has to take into accounts the number of people driving or flying."

The number of hours spent in a vehicle would be important because, all else being equal (and obviously it isn't) that could make you twice as likely to have an accident. Instead of looking just at the number of people driving or flying, you need to look at the number of drives or flights, and the number of people in each car or airplane in addition to the number of incidents.

If you want to quantify the "danger" (i.e. the probability you'll be killed) involved in using a mode of transportation, you need to look at a number of variables all at the same time. You need to look at the number of vehicles being operated, the length of time (or distance) per use, number of uses per day, number of passengers per vehicle and finally the number of incidents. This is just a start I'm sure, but you need too examine at least this much at the same time to even start making reasonable comparisons.

Just for the record, I am not a statistican.

Most people fly rarely, and when they do it's a long-distance trip. I suspect its safer to fly from NYC to LAX than it is to drive.

Here's my take:

In any given day, American Airlines operates somewhere in the neighborhood of 700 flights. A DAY. In six years, five flights have gone down.

Six years = 2191.5 days. At 700 flights a day, that's 1,534,050 flights. Out of those, they've lost five. That's 1 flight out of every 306,810 that actually goes down.

Pretty good odds, to me.

However, when a flight goes down it kills 300 people; so the fatality rate, more or less, is one per 1,000 flights. If the average flight is 300 miles or so, that's only one fatality per 300,000 miles, or still ludicrously better than traveling better by car.

If jets travel 3-4 times the speed of cars, then the chance of death per hour traveling is even better.

"If jets travel 3-4 times the speed of cars"

More like 10 times if you talking about highway speeds for cars and normal cruising speeds for jets. Your point still makes sense though.

Well, I was factoring in time waiting at the airports or whatever.

I should have guessed that. Flying from STL to Chicago took about the same amount of time as driving (~4.5hrs) if you included the airport waiting (and this was before sept 11th).