Portland Airplane Accident Attorney

Establishing Liability in an Airplane Accident Case

Airplanes and other aircraft are complicated machines that should always be properly designed and manufactured using parts and materials that are of the highest quality. In addition, the companies that own airplanes and helicopters should always keep them properly inspected and maintained to ensure everything is always in full working order. The people who pilot these aircraft are also required to be properly trained, qualified, and licensed to do so and, while they are in control, they have the legal duty to exercise care to ensure the safety of anyone aboard. The crew on board is also expected to follow procedures and comply with safety regulations to keep everyone as safe as possible. If any one of the above parties does not meet their legal duty, dangerous accident can result.

Following an aviation accident, investigators from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) examine the circumstances surrounding the accident, including any communications made by pilots or crew, data from the “black box,” the state of the aircraft, and more. The NTSB will try to determine the party that was responsible for the accident and those parties can often include:

For the most part, airplane accidents should not occur. Very few accidents are actually unavoidable. Generally, aviation crashes happen because someone in the chain of operation did something wrong, putting the safety of innocent people at severe risk as a result. Most aviation accidents occur directly because of human error. In fact, the BBC reports that human error is the primary cause of more than 80 percent of all airplane crashes, with avoidable mechanical errors causing most of the remaining crashes.

In an airplane accident case, all negligent parties should be held legally liable for their share of the accident. In other words, any party, whether it is the pilot, the airline company, the airport operator or the aircraft manufacturer can be sued for damages.