Answers to Frequently Asked Questions About Airplane Crashes and Accidents

1. How quickly must I hire an attorney?
2. What are my legal rights after an aircraft disaster?
3. Will I have to pay a fee for your review of my case?
4. Who will I sue?
5. How long will a lawsuit take?
6. How do I select an attorney to represent me?
7. Should I accept an offer from the airline to settle the case right away without consulting an attorney?
8. How much will I get?
9. Do I need a lawyer? Why don’t I just contact the defendant and work it out with its insurance company?
10. Don't you just duplicate the work of government investigators?
11. Can you help me if my accident occurred outside the United States, or over the ocean?
12. How do I contact your law firm?

You should not feel pressured to make an immediate decision about pursuing a claim for compensation. Mourning the loss of loved ones should take precedence over financial issues at this difficult time. However, do keep in mind that each country (or sometimes each state, province, or other subdivision within that country) imposes a deadline for lawsuits. This deadline is known as the statute of limitations. Certain international flights are governed by the Montreal Convention, an international treaty that provides its own deadline of two years from the date of the accident. Because sometimes it can be very difficult to determine which deadline applies, it is important to seek the advice of a lawyer before the shortest possible deadline expires.

Lawsuits against governments often are a possibility, since those entities provide weather and air traffic control services to pilots, and also operate many airports, so their negligence may play a role in some accidents. When suing a governmental entity you may be subject to extremely short deadlines, often less than a year.

This depends on where the accident occurred and where the individuals involved lived.

In the United States, when a person is injured in an aircraft accident, in most cases the injured victim may bring a claim along with his or her spouse, who is entitled to compensation for the loss of support, services and other benefits that a married couple provide to each other. In wrongful death cases, most U.S. states provide that the decedent’s spouse and children, if any, are entitled to sue for damages. If there is no spouse, then a child (or guardian of a child) may sue, and if there is neither a spouse nor child, then the decedent’s parents are entitled to sue. After the parents, siblings are next in line of priority. The damages standards for wrongful death cases vary widely among states and countries, with some jurisdictions only permitting recovery of financial losses, and others recognizing the need to compensate for the profound grief involved in the death of a loved one.

For accidents involving international flights, the Montreal Convention often will apply and will restrict where the airline can be sued and what types of damages are recoverable. The passenger’s travel itinerary becomes very important in these cases and you should make sure to preserve all the travel documents for possible use in a lawsuit. Only an experienced international aviation lawyer will be familiar with the law in this area.

There is no charge for our review of your case. If we decide we can represent you, we will discuss our contingent fees (calculated as a percentage of the recovery we obtain) and provide a written contract for us to agree on.

That depends on the facts of the case. In order to maximize your chance of success and recovery, we investigate the conduct of all potential defendants, including the pilots; the airline(s) involved; the owner of the aircraft; the manufacturer of the aircraft and its key parts; the aircraft maintenance provider; the government (for possible negligence by air traffic controllers and weather services); and airport operators. Further, the facts of a particular case may dictate investigation into the conduct of others.

We cannot give any guarantees. Air crash investigations are often complex. It typically takes many months before definitive conclusions about the cause of an accident can be reached. In some instances, a case will settle to your satisfaction shortly after it is filed, or perhaps even before. In most cases, a final resolution will take one to two years.

Rest assured that because Lieff Global earns no fee until you make a recovery, we work efficiently and swiftly to obtain maximum compensation to our clients and bring your case to a successful conclusion.

In deciding on representation, families should seek a lawyer that has substantial experience in successfully handling similar cases. It is important to not only verify the reputation and experience of the law firm as a whole but to be sure that your case will be handled by individuals with appropriate experience. Finally, aviation cases can be extremely expensive to litigate and the firm you choose should have the resources to conduct the case through trial and appeal if necessary.

No. You should not be pressured into making immediate decisions about any offer of final compensation. There is no legal reason that requires you to make a quick decision. In the United States, both airline representatives and plaintiff’s lawyers are required by federal law to refrain from contacting families for the first 45 days after an accident. By contrast, in Europe the airlines are required to make advance payments to meet any immediate financial needs of the decedent’s survivors. Such payments are to be made to the legal next of kin and should be made without the recipients being required to sign any documentation other than a simple receipt for the funds advanced. The receipt should in no way prejudice the legal rights of the family, but it is a wise precaution to have any document from the airlines or their insurance companies reviewed by a lawyer with knowledge of European and international law.

Families may be asked by an airline's representatives to provide personal information about the deceased, their occupation, earnings, and who their dependants were. We strongly advise that the next of kin not respond to any such inquiries without first obtaining qualified legal advice.

In most jurisdictions, if the defendants are found liable, you are entitled to a judgment that fully compensates you for your financial loss. For other elements of harm, jurisdictions differ on what you are entitled to. If you suffered a personal injury, the defendant is responsible for paying for your medical care, both past and expected, your past and future lost earnings, and an amount to compensate you for pain and suffering. Your spouse also might be entitled to an award.

If a loved one died, the recovery usually is based on the amount of economic support and services that you lost, plus, in some jurisdictions, an amount designed to compensate for your grief and mental anguish. We have economists who specialize in evaluating these injuries and calculating the lump-sum amount that will provide monetary compensation for your loss.

If the conduct that caused the accident was egregious, you may also be entitled to an award of punitive damages. This is not available for international flights governed by the Montreal Convention.

It is usually both impossible and inadvisable to try to resolve an aviation accident case on your own. Aircraft are complex machines, and aviation accidents involve multiple parties and complex questions concerning what happened, who was legally responsible, and how the matter should be resolved. Not only legal experts (attorneys), but also aviation experts such as engineers and pilots, working on your behalf, are critical to properly evaluate the case and advise you of your rights. Without these experts, you may never know what really happened, or what the true value of your case is.

It is important to understand that the airline and their insurers always employ the services of expert lawyers that seek to avoid responsibility or at least minimize the payments that will be made to the victims and families. In contrast, our duty is to identify all responsible parties and maximize the compensation that can be obtained. Only established firms like Lieff Global have the staying power to investigate these complex cases thoroughly, and to send a message to the defendants that they will not be able to hide their misconduct from you.

Consider this true life example. Several years ago one of our attorneys investigated a case in which the client passenger was rendered quadriplegic by turbulence that caused him to slam his head into the aircraft ceiling. The airline claimed he was the victim of "clear air turbulence," which cannot be predicted because it arises in clear, good weather. The airline argued it was not at fault.

However, when the attorney reviewed the flight data and compared it with the reports of his weather experts, he discovered that the airline had lied to government safety investigators about the location of the aircraft at the time of the accident. The pilots were actually flying over a storm and neglected to turn on the seat belt sign or warn passengers of the risk. The airline settled the case for several million dollars.

Government investigators are charged with the task of investigating accidents to assure that we learn from mistakes and do not repeat them. They do a good job, but often they are influenced by airline and manufacturer representatives that are permitted to work with them to investigate crashes. Often this leads to a bias that tends to blame pilots for accidents that were caused in part by poor aircraft designs or even total system failures. Only experts and consultants that are hired by outside attorneys can bring a perspective that is wholly uninfluenced by this bias.

Yes. If you or a loved one was a United States resident traveling on an international flight, the Montreal Convention may permit you to bring suit in the United States regardless of where the accident or injury occurred. If you are a resident of another nation, we are affiliated with a network of premier aviation law attorneys worldwide. We can assist you in finding expert counsel in the jurisdiction where your claim can best be prosecuted.

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